Sasuke's Obsession, Sakura's Misery Redone
by Sympathetic Wishes
Summary: Leave me and I'll kill you.
1. Chapter 1

**I do have to sincerely apologize for leaving so abruptly everyone, this story had been plagiarized and I was very upset about it but a friend of mine informed that fanfiction had added this new function that prevented copying and pasting so I decided to give this site another chance. Again, I'm really sorry to all my honest readers. ****I**t took me a really long time to find my muse to write this fic again.

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**World: Sasuke and Sakura never knew each other growing up.**

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_The Death of Sakura Haruno_

The light fixture was broken again.

Not that Sakura noticed for she has always preferred the dark anyway.

It stalled time from _him _whenever he came to visit her, if only by a few seconds. _He _was Sasuke Uchiha, the man that had literally torn her life apart with his bare hands.

Sakura lied cold upon her bed of marred white bed sheets inside of the completely shadowed room that was dead bolted from the outside. She only knew this because whenever he came to find her it took him a prolonged moment to unlock the door and always a heavy metallic 'clang' sounded before the door opened.

Then she would come face to face with her dark eyed captor.

A man of stoic beauty and flawless features that she would have found attractive in any other circumstance.

Any other circumstance that didn't involve him being a psychopath.

While he'd never physically hit her during her captivity thus far, that didn't mean that Sakura wouldn't get hurt in some way or another-

-when he forced himself on her.

Sakura buried her face into the crumpled white linen sheets beneath her as the debase acts that she tried to suppress in her memory (as soon as they'd occurred) came flooding back to her.

She wasn't a strong girl. People always thought she was but she was really quite weak on the inside.

And she was forced to confront this fact now more than ever, being the object of Sasuke's insane possession and lust. Whenever he took her, right in the midst of their most heightened pleasures, he would always whisper the same thing to her: _"You're mine. Don't ever forget that…you can never leave me."_

And as much as it shamed Sakura to say it, part of her was starting to believe him.

She'd lost count of the days she'd stayed here for because sometimes she would black out and miss the twenty-four hour count; meaning she would wake up and look through the single window in her room to find that it was either still dawn or still night. Then Sakura wouldn't be able to fathom if she'd either been asleep for just a couple minutes or an entire twenty-four hour count.

It may have seemed weird that Sakura couldn't predict her own sleeping schedules…but the reason behind it was simple: Sasuke drugged her food. And more than often it was laced with some kind of sleep medication, throwing her entire REM cycle out of whack.

By now Sakura had gotten used to the telltale signs of having woken up from a drug induced sleep. Her head always felt heavier and it was very hard to fall asleep for the couple days after.

While the benefits of staying unconscious and unaware whenever Sasuke visited her appealed to Sakura…the theories of what he would do to her when she was unconscious…completely outweighed them.

She just wished Sasuke would get sick of her and find someone else already.

_No! _Inner Sakura chastised her thought immediately. _How could you wish this psychopath upon someone else?_

Yeah, that was rather selfish of her…but how else would she possibly get free?

She'd tried, on several occasions in the past, to break out. All of them ending in failure and Sasuke punishing her so severely for the transgression that she was usually left unable to walk for the next couple of days.

Eventually, she'd stopped trying.

_And besides, how do you even know he'll set you free if he finds another toy? He might _kill _you! _Inner Sakura intoned pragmatically and Sakura couldn't help but agree.

It was all true. She didn't know if he would let her go alive, if he would do that at all.

From the little info she'd managed to garner about the man named Sasuke, she'd discovered that he was a very calculating, careful man.

All the furnishings in her white cemented room had their feet nailed down to the ground, so she could never pick up anything to use against him. Even the drawers that pulled out in the cabinet had brass bolts on both ends when they extended, disallowing separation.

All the wood in the room was pristine new and devoid of chippings so Sakura couldn't even dislodge some aged chunk and use it as a makeshift stake. The single window also had thick copper bars nailed juxtaposing across the glass pane.

There wasn't even any kind of fixture on the ceiling for Sakura to potentially hang herself on!  
Because yes, the thought of suicide had occurred to her by now.

Everything. EVERYTHING. He had thought of already.

The man had prepared for any and all forms of escape she could possibly come up with.

Sakura knew that this either meant he'd done this many times in the past or he really was just that intelligent.

She prayed to god that it was the former because that gave her hope of someday outsmarting him and running away…even though her inner practical self already knew the real answer. Too many escape attempts of hers had been foiled, even in the planning stages, for her to not concede of his vast intellect.

Sakura Haruno knew she wasn't dumb. Far from it in fact, for she'd finished top of her class in Ninja Academy, having been accepted to train under The Fifth Mizukage, Mei Terumi, when she was eighteen…only to have Sasuke steal this future from her.

She hadn't known who he was.

The strange man who suddenly appeared to her one night when she was walking home, who had just stared at her with strange red eyes…

-and that was the last thing she remembered before waking up in this hell. Originally, he'd kept her in a wooden cabin but soon moved her to this iron place, chaining her ankles to the footrest of the bed.

Despite her growing obedient over the…unknown amount of time she'd spent with the man, Sasuke had never relented with the manacles.

_"Y-you can't expect me to wear them the entire time you're away!" Sakura had shouted, back then when she still had her audacity and strength. She was referring to the fact that he often times left her alone for what was more than hours on end, or sometimes even days until he visited her and took them off._

_"Look! The skin on my ankles has already been worn down by the steel!" Sakura had exclaimed while jutting out her foot for him to see; Sasuke didn't look down._

_His expression was locked dead tight in rage at her defiance._

_He suddenly pounced on her, shoving her down onto the bed as his hand came to grip her jaw painfully. His entire body lied atop of her as he whispered menacingly close to her face: "That will be the last of your problems if you don't accept that this is the way things are going to be."_

_Sakura tsked in fury and spat into his face. She wasn't going to submit to him._

_Sasuke growled in absolute fury and-_

The pink haired girl broke off her flashback there, refusing to think about that wretched night any further. Needless to say, things hadn't ended well for her.

Though, to her surprise, about a week after that Sasuke had heeded her words about the painful metal manacles and switched them with leather ones, secured with a digital lock.

Sakura hadn't been stupid enough to mistake the action for him caring about her. She wasn't foolish. The sick man had probably rationalized that she would last longer as a toy to be played with. As his "beautiful pet" as he sometimes called her.

The nickname sickened Sakura but she'd stopped arguing against it.

In fact, she'd stopped arguing against everything he did to her by now.

There was absolutely no point.

He had after all crippled all of her chakra points, forever preventing her from using any sort of jutsu anymore, no matter how much she rested or recovered. And so literally Sasuke only had to put in an ounce of his strength to suppress her whenever he realized she was trying to free herself again.

There was a chance that Tsunade, Konoha's current Hokage, could heal her…but Sakura couldn't very well go to the woman while she was captured like this.

And so much time had passed without any sign of _anyone _even looking for her…that Sakura had lost hope that the all-loving Hokage ever would find her.

Perhaps…she would die here after all.


	2. Chapter 2

Just a silent and unannounced death, in this bed.

Just then the bolted door to her prison clinked. The lock mechanism was being released…as she expected, in the matter of seconds a tall lean silhouette stood in her doorway.

Footsteps encroached upon her mattress haven and Sakura unconsciously shivered as she withdrew into a fetal position, a failed attempt to hide from what came next.

He kissed her.

On the ear, specifically. Sakura shivered, both from the added cold air from the open doorway and the fear she felt from his added presence onto the bed next to her. He wrapped his warm long slender arms around her from the front, blocking out a majority of the frost.

Sometimes she wondered if he kept her room and the house (or whatever he'd placed her in) cold just to make her have to cradle close to him, for warmth.

Well, it worked.

Sakura, wearing only a white tank top and white shorts (the latest outfit he'd given her to wear) gave in to his warm hold and buried herself into the soft confines of his black sweatshirt, as he endearingly wrapped his arms around her like a pseudo-lover's embrace.

It wasn't enough.

Sakura still shivered in the cold and Sasuke smirked as she tightened her hold around his waist, pulling his lean frame as close as possible to block out the freeze.

_Yeah, he definitely lowered the thermostat whenever he came to visit her_. Inner Sakura noted when she felt him kiss her forehead, taking advantage of their proximity.

There were times, like now, when Sakura wondered how such a beautiful dark haired man, with soft embraces like this would have to resort to kidnap and rape to get a woman to be with him.

What had happened to him?

To make him like this?

For that was another thing that bothered Sakura about her austere predicament: she didn't know a single thing about the man torturing and comforting her at the same time.

A content sigh couldn't help escape out from Sakura's cherry lips when the shivers finally subsided; that is, after Sasuke had completely pulled her straight against his entire length and turned so that she lied completely beneath him.

The man was wearing smooth business slacks and a dark navy-blue sweatshirt that accentuated his lean torso. He wasn't in the least bit bulky, having the perfect amount of muscle to tissue ratio and sinfully attractive looking as a result of his perfect face and height.

Sakura knew she would have fallen for someone like this.

In any other circumstance.

Sasuke smirked as he heard her sigh and felt her shivering subside. Sakura tried to pretend she was still cold, to prolong what she knew he was going to do now that they were in this position but Sasuke saw through her act.

He leaned down and whispered in her ear: "If you're still cold, my dear, I can think of several other methods to warm you up."

And Sakura's shaking subsided, just like that.

Sasuke couldn't help smiling at her easy predictable self.

"Please…." Sakura was already pleading. "I really don't want-"

"Shh," was all Sasuke had to say to quiet her and he suddenly drew her sitting up.

"Come with me."

He undid the digital lock on her manacles (by using a scan key he hung around his neck) and pulled Sakura up by her hand. He was being gentle, for right now at least.

To keep him from getting angry, Sakura compliantly followed behind the dark haired man as he led her out of her room, for the first time in…well Sakura couldn't remember the last time she'd seen the outside anymore.

There was a small bathroom conjoined to the metal room so Sasuke always forced her to shower there, before handing her the clothes he wanted her to wear that day. He even served her meals inside the place so Sakura never had to step out. She supposed it was because he knew that she had a better chance of running away outside than she did inside.

Sasuke lived in…what looked to be an apartment, only extremely large. Almost looking like the presidential suite of some fancy hotel. The last time Sakura had been outside she'd been blindfolded and led a very short distance from the metal room, before being forced to sit on a chair so Sasuke could cut her hair. When he'd first taken her, her hair had been short to her neckline.

When he'd cut it, it had already grown to run down her backside.

While Sakura didn't physically feel any older than eighteen (when he'd first stolen her), she supposed she was at least nineteen by now. If not twenty.

She wasn't sure how long it took for her hair to grow to that length but Sakura theorized that was how long had passed.

Which kind of saddened her hat he'd managed to dominate completely over her…in just the span of 12 months.

But what could she do?

Sakura was permanently crippled from using her chakra anymore and she couldn't even _try _to fight him with hand to hand combat because he always kept her mildly weak with sedation in her meals.

The only reason she was so lively right now was because she hadn't eaten anything yet today, which was both ironic and disturbing that she had more energy before eating than she did after.

Sakura bit her lip as they passed yet _another _corridor while still on the same floor. His home was starting to feel like a maze, and they hadn't even traversed any stairwells yet!

Where in the world was she?

Finally, Sasuke stopped before an empty doorway, shadowed completely in darkness, obscuring whatever it contained.

When the man moved to stand behind Sakura, motioning for her to go in first, she started feeling like a sacrifice in some crude ritual. As if the instant she stepped through she would be devoured whole by some invisible snake.

"Go on," Sasuke said while shoving her gently.

Sakura took one step forward.

Instantly, the lights came on their own, lighting up the entire room.

Scratch that, _dining _room.

The entire room was spacious, with a long slender obsidian glass table that Sakura knew was Sasuke's purpose for taking her here.

The table's end that faced them had a cake on it. White creamed with pale pink gel writing (that matched her hair) that wrote simply: SAKURA, across the entire rounded surface.

Next to the cake was also a large but rather flat wrapped box in glossy pink paper and a red ribbon on it.

The entire bizarre scenario screamed birthday party but Sakura was sure that it wasn't winter yet, for she was born in December and it was always snowing whenever it was her birthday. Right now, judging by the color of the trees, she guessed it to be about Fall.

And also, she wasn't sure if she was comfortable with the idea of her kidnapper throwing her a party.

In that moment she'd taken to observe the scene, Sakura hadn't noticed that Sasuke had sat down at the table.

Before she knew what was going on, she felt him pull her into his lap. Sakura yelped in fear but Sasuke's great strength easily steadied her and she was forced to balance across his legs.

Sasuke's lips curved into a grin. "Do you know what today is, my dear?"

Sakura could hardly focus as she felt a knowing hardness already pressing uncomfortably into her hip; god, tonight was not going to end well.

She shook her head desperately. "I don't know."

Sasuke moved up close to whisper into her ear next: "Our anniversary."

So it had been a year.

One entire year he'd stolen from her.

Her previous fire, that Sakura had thought was all but squashed, reignited inside the pit of her heart. Hatred; pure enmity that was what she felt for the man.

Though it was just a spark and she kept it repressed for now.

Sasuke ran his slender finger across the side of the cake to grab a lump of white cream on just the tip before raising it to Sakura's lips, as if to feed her.

God, Sakura hated this.

But she lowered her mouth and sucked his index clean.

Sasuke's arousal was just getting harder beneath her and Sakura couldn't help shivering in disgust. The man mistook this as the chills again. "Are you still cold?" he asked concernedly while rubbing his hand gently over her back.

His voice spoke implicitly: "Perhaps we should skip the cake and do what I suggested after all, to warm you up."

Sakura immediately shook her head. "I-I'm fine!" she cried desperately. "Really I am!"

Sasuke stared at her for a long time, trying to fathom whether or not she was telling the truth. Suddenly he captured her red plump lips with his, ravishing her with all the fervor he could muster. Sakura squirmed instinctively in the kiss but a hand came to lock against the back of her head and he deepened their union.

When Sasuke finally separated, he whispered breathily across her lips: "God, you're so fucking beautiful."


	3. Chapter 3

When Sasuke finally separated, he whispered breathily across her lips: "God, you're so fucking beautiful."

Sakura, more out of breath than him, bit her swollen lip fearfully. She trembled still in his hold, from sheer fear. Sasuke chuckled darkly. "Still cold?"

He suddenly stood up, too fast for Sakura to get back on her feet so she thought she was going to fall over-

-only to have Sasuke force her flat against the long dining table, right against the cake. Any closer and she would have been smeared by the white cream frosting.

Sasuke moved her so that her head was right to the side of the cake while her legs fell straight down the rest of the table. His dark warning gaze, told her to stay where she was and Sakura, despite her Inner scolding self, obeyed.

Sasuke used that moment to undo his black dress shirt and shucked it off behind him, before climbing up to straddle her waist. Tears welled up miserably inside Sakura's lime green eyes but she held them back; a part of her theorized that he liked seeing her cry.

Sakura kept her eyes shut as he shoved her tank top up to bunch around the tops of her bra covered breasts before stripping it off over her head. Sasuke then reached behind and undid the white lace bra she with practiced agility, before throwing it too off somewhere in the kitchen.

Sakura quivered at the sudden chill that hit her but Sasuke didn't leave her cold like that. His entire body came down to cover hers in an instant.

The pink haired girl would have rather been cold.

And yet, she couldn't argue that his actions weren't having an effect on her. He knew exactly where to touch and how to caress to set her skin ablaze and Sakura was feeling every ounce of it as he continued kneading her breasts, now trapped between their bodies.

A quiet moan escaped through her lips before she'd known what had happened.

Sasuke smirked above her as he took in her now flushed red face. He suddenly took a rather large dollop of cream from the cake, this time, and smeared it straight across her neckline. Sakura almost yelped at how cold the frosting was. She tried squirming away when he'd bent down but a hand had clamped down tight upon her shoulder, stopping her.

Sasuke moved to lick the cream off her in slow tantalizing movements.

God….she was going to be sick.

Sakura had squeezed her eyes shut during the whole ordeal, despite her own _reluctant _desires growing in the pit of her abdomen. When he took her it was always like this: her mind and body standing on polar opposites of the spectrum.

Inner Sakura told her to keep quiet and just let him finish so he would leave her alone.

But at the same time, a primordial primal urge in her core told her to forget all inhibitions and reciprocate.

And despite herself, Sakura was drowning in it again. A cloud of delirium in the illusion of lust obscured her senses and practicality causing her to forget the dire nature of her captivity. A carnal need told her to stop thinking and just _feel._

Using that small lapse of attention, Sasuke had undone the button and zipper to her white shorts and now as she snapped back to reality Sakura's jaw dropped at how far he'd gone already. Sasuke took that chance to kiss her, tongue delving in deep to explore her opened mouth. Sakura cried into the kiss and tried to back away but her head only hit flat against the hard table. "Mm!" she cried strongly, right through the kiss but Sasuke only ignored it and continued.

Simultaneously, his hands worked between their bodies again to push down her shorts and underwear. Sakura tried to thrash against him but her devoid-of-chakra-punches were too weak to be effective and her kicks couldn't reach.

In a flash, her lower garments were shoved down to her knees and she felt him ground himself against her. "AH!" Sakura screamed desperately at the intrusive feeling through his slacks but he only continued pushing against her.

"God…you can drive a man insane," Sasuke whispered before finally undoing his pants to reveal himself. Sakura squirmed and flailed-

-but Sasuke still entered her. A cry of despair came from her lips but that too was silenced as the man came to kiss her again.

_What in god's name had she done to deserve this?_

Slowly he began to build up pressure within her by sliding into her and then coming out. Then back in. Sakura was completely crying by now, no longer caring if he saw her tears. His tongue attacked her mouth so intensely that Sakura's own tongue could just cower back in fear as he ravaged her.

Slick heat began to build up in the center of their union, despite Sakura's reluctance and she found herself turned on by the man's slowed thrusting. She knew that was his goal: to arouse her without her consent.

And even though, she didn't want to give him this- like she never wanted to-

-Sakura found herself gasping in heightened desire as the tension in her abdomen tripled in intensity. She needed him to go faster!

But Sasuke, whom she had learned had much better stamina and resistance than her, continued to go at the delayed speed, just barely giving her what she wanted. Quiet mews and soft sounds of unreleased distress escaped Sakura's lips without her permission; Sasuke grinned.

He lowered his face and whispered against her earlobe: "Tell me what you want Sa-ku-ra."

He spoke her name purposely slow, in tune with each of his heavy thrusts. Sakura was desperately trying to hide her arousal because she knew that was the exact opposite of what he wanted. She knew he was trying to get her turned on, despite her unwillingness. Part of her hoped that if she continued to resist him, he would eventually get bored of her and let her go.

But what she didn't know was that either option excited him.

He enjoyed the both the processes of forcing her into an orgasm against her will and also taking her willingly the entire way.  
He loved everything about taking her.

But the more she ran away from her feelings the wilder they grew, desperate to get release from inside of her.

Sasuke knew this was the inner battle inside her right now; having taking her so many times already in the past, he knew exactly what she was doing. And so he moved her palms –that had fallen listlessly to her sides when he'd penetrated her- back up to rest on his shoulders.

Not only did Sakura not take them back she found herself tightening her grip on his lean shoulders and pull him down tighter, subconsciously wishing that he would fill more of her.

Sakura couldn't stand her body at times like this.

But at the same time she actually felt _pained _by Sasuke's slow pace.

"What do you want, Sa-ku-ra?" the man asked again, breath deep and voice low from his own desire. If she didn't give in soon, he would have to start up anyway. Sakura's tears streamed harder but she drew him into a searing kiss, answering him.

Sasuke hadn't been expecting this and for a second didn't react. But that soon changed when his tongue came to dominate hers again. Finally, he moved at a quicker pace inside of her.

Higher and higher he pumped into her until all she felt was heat, on every one of her pores. Sakura felt like she was on fire and her hands came to claw at Sasuke's back, unwittingly.

"Ah!" she cried as she found herself right on the edge of climax-

-only to stop abruptly.

For that's what Sasuke had done.

He had far greater stamina and sexual prowess than her so he could stand the pain of unreleased desire longer, much to Sakura's distress. She opened her lime green eyes and sought his dark one's for an answer to his abrupt halt. Her eyes were all but pleading for him to continue.

Sasuke's face was lined right above hers. Sakura wasn't able to look away from the transfixing depths of dark irises….

"Say you'll never leave me," he spoke heavily and gutturally.

Sakura replied quickly: "I'll never leave you."

"Say you're mine."

"I'm yours."

"Say you love me," Sasuke asked her, just like he did before.

Sakura's eyes widened, the cloud of lust finally dissipating slightly.

Her hesitation was all the answer he needed.

Sakura cowered in fear at the anger that suddenly resonated within his Sasuke's eyes. She scrambled to answer: "I'm sorry I do lo-"

Suddenly, Sasuke's lips came covering down on Sakura's again, ravishing them with a punishing fury that she never experienced except for when he caught her trying to runaway.

He didn't let her speak again after that; he continued building up pressure within the two of them while devouring her mouth with his. His hands came to grope her breasts painfully until all Sakura could feel was both pain and pleasure.

When she came, her scream was a mix of both agony and bliss.

Sasuke followed soon after, a jolt of hot lightning to her core as he stayed tense and deep within her for a few moments…before collapsing right on top of her.

Sakura was completely spent and so made no resistance whatsoever when his head came to fall straight onto her breasts. His sweat matted black hair still felt soft and, as much as Sakura hated to admit it, comforting against her skin.

Up until Sasuke, she'd never had any sort of intimacy with a boy in her life before. And while she didn't consider Sasuke her boyfriend, or even a lover –no those words were too good for him- she…wondered what exactly he counted as to her.

Rapist.

Psychopath.

Kidnapper.

…the list was endless, her Inner Self immediately answered.

But…or rather, why did her heart race whenever he was being this…loving to her?

She'd promised herself that she would never fall for his ploys, his false endearing words…but were they really false?

And why was he so desperate for her to say that she loved him?

_HE'S. A. PSYCHOPATH. _Inner Sakura argued vehemently. _HAVE YOU SUDDENLY LOST YOUR MIND TOO?_

Her Inner Self was furious at her right now. And Sakura supposed, rightfully so too.

She should hate this man.

She should hate this man.

She should-

"What are you thinking about?" Sasuke's voice suddenly broke into her thoughts and Sakura found all of her thoughts about the man immediately paralyzed, all except one: fear.

She was far too afraid of the man to even potentially care for him.

Sasuke looked up at her and Sakura just shook her head: "...nothing."


	4. Chapter 4

"You want to what?" Sasuke impatiently cut in, his voice laden with potential danger. It seemed he was still angry at her hesitation in obeying his final command just moments ago.

"I-I want to take…a shower." Sakura spoke honestly, and weakly.

She _hated _how pathetic she was when it came to Sasuke. Why couldn't she be that strong, independent, chunin from just a year ago, on her way to becoming Mei Terumi's disciple?

What had happened to that Sakura Haruno?

But right when Sasuke forcefully pulled her to her feet and started dragging her off, the answer came to her: that Sakura had died.

And in its place was a girl that neither resembled nor could match up to the previous one's image, in either strength or independence.

Sasuke pulled her down a short shadowed corridor and entered the first room on the left. Again the lights came on of their own accord.

Sakura knew only rich homes could afford automatic light switches so she guessed he was quite wealthy. _Well duh, how else do you think he could afford to kidnap and take care of another person for an entire year? This guy obviously has money to spare._ Inner Sakura chided quickly.

They were standing in a bathroom of awing extravagance. Sakura gaped in pure astonishment at the marble walls that surrounded her on all sides, even on the soles of her bare feet. The stone was cold to the touch and Sakura was both reluctant and too stunned to move further inside, at least initially.

Sasuke saw this and casually picked her up in his arms, laughing when the terrified expression appeared across the girl's face. "Still afraid of heights, I see."

Sakura shut her eyes at this comment. From the first week he'd taken her, Sasuke had shown her that he was well versed in almost _everything_ about her. Her likes, her dislikes, her fears, her favorites…down to her shoe size and what age she'd lost her last baby teeth.

And even _intimate _details.

Like how he'd known that he would be her first, right before he'd raped her.

How in the world did he know so much about her?

The sound of hard industrial water running broke her out of her thoughts. Sasuke had set her down on the rim of the tub as she'd contemplated and was now drawing a bath for her, quickly filling up the nearly five feet in diameter porcelain tub.

When Sasuke stood up and came to meet eyes with her, the pinked haired kunoichi instinctively cowered back. The black haired man tsked and motioned for her to step in. Sakura obeyed and waited for the inevitable: when he came in to join her.

"Clean yourself, I'll be back to check on you in twenty minutes," was all he said before standing up and stepping out.

Sakura was in awe of this freedom. He _never _let her bathe alone, always wanting to join her or even just stand by watching with the door open.

She…didn't know what to think of this development.

What was she supposed to think? That his conscious had finally started grating on him, to treat her just a little bit more like another human being?

No…that didn't sound like him.

Was he…trying to trick her into a false sense of security?

That one actually sounded plausible.

But Sakura was too tired to delve any further into this; her mind and body were still quite tired from Sasuke's earlier attention. She just wanted to soak and let the hot water envelop her.

And that's exactly what she did.

She took her time in lathering on the shampoo in her hair and then the body wash, rubbing the soapy slough deep into her skin so as to mask the dirty grime that had just occurred on it. The soap, shampoo, and conditioner all smelled of vanilla and cinnamon, for that was what Sasuke claimed her "scent" was. Sakura had originally been unaccustomed to the scents because she'd always liked unscented things in the past…but she'd gotten used to it by now.

She'd gotten used to so much of Sasuke by now.

A heavy sigh escaped Sakura's lips as she let the hot water run down her entire body, flushing away the soap.

_Just who exactly was this man?_

And why did he care so much about her?

She wasn't particularly pretty looking, having very little breasts and hardly any curves. At her best, she just looked cute. So what made her appeal to him?

_HELLO, HE'S A CRAZY PERSON. What other reasoning do you need? _Inner Sakura chided.

The pinkette couldn't help smiling at this thought. Yeah, if nothing else, the fact that he'd chosen her proved, more than anything else, that he was insane.

Too soon the twenty minutes came up and Sakura's haven was disrupted by a loud racking of knuckles upon her door. The girl immediately stood up in the tub, covering her breasts while doing so. She wrapped a towel around herself before opening the door of the bathroom.

Sasuke wasn't there anymore but a stack of folded clothes and one white towel was, placed right on the dry ground outside.

* * *

Sasuke didn't have to wait long before the girl came out dressed in the clothes he'd given her.

The man immediately smiled.

Sakura deadpanned. Wh-what was making him so happy? He never looked at her like that. She looked down at herself. Was it because of the clothes she was wearing? He had never given her this outfit before but it didn't seem too special:

-a red zip up vest top that was sleeveless.

-tight thigh high leggings, like athletic wear for bottoms, on top of which was a sported pink sliced skirt.

-on her right legging was a series of white wraps securing a leather pouch that seemed to be made for carrying shinobi tools but now was empty.

-and last she had black simple boots that reached to just below her knees.

The entire ensemble said battle wear but Sasuke didn't seem to see it as that.

No, instead he drew close to her with dark heavy lidded eyes to seal her lips with his.

The kiss swept through Sakura and she cowered back, without thinking. Immediately Sasuke's palms locked behind her head, keeping her against him as he whispered menacingly: "BEHAVE."

Sakura whimpered in despair but stayed where she was until he'd had his fill of her. When Sasuke finally separated, her mouth was swollen and red from abuse. Her hand came to instinctively cover the sensitive lips and Sasuke just smirked.

He forced her head into the crook of his neck, right beneath his chin and Sakura didn't bother fighting him. His arms suddenly scooped her up into his hold and Sakura cowered in fear from the sudden loss of balance but still didn't fight.

All she could hear, as her head rested against Sasuke's chest, was his raging heart line.

"Don't let go of me," was all he gave as a warning before Sakura felt the world around her melting.

They were travelling using chakra.

In a way, it was almost like teleportation. They moved at break neck speeds for a moment, seemingly vanishing before an untrained eye before stopping and then moving at the same speed again.

Sakura couldn't even distinguish her surroundings outside of the aura of power that completely encapsulated her and Sasuke. Everything just looked like a blur of shapes and colors to her unseeing eyes.

She'd spent too much time not training that she'd forgotten how to see through Chakra and justu anymore. Sakura couldn't believe how much she'd regressed, without even realizing it!

She knew this was Sasuke's fault too. If he hadn't kidnapped her…

…who knows how much she would have learned by now from the Fifth Mizukage?

_Now's your chance. Today, you're finally outside! When you get the chance, run as far as you can from this psycho! _Inner Sakura shouted.

But how? He still was eons stronger than her since he'd crippled all her chakra points and if she _failed _to escape, she would be in for a world of hurt from him.

…_oh yeah. _Inner Sakura conceded despairingly. _Well…maybe, you should try to earn his trust, let him think that you've grown completely dependent to him, so then he would give you more slack…and then you could run and find help from someone!_

From who though? She asked herself as her myriad of surroundings turned from dark black square-looking shapes to dark green. They must have been travelling in the forest by now.

Inner Sakura contemplated the question on who could possibly help her…_Tsunade could, if you could just somehow get a message to the woman. Or maybe even some of your comrades from Ninja Academy?_

Sakura wondered if any of them still remembered her.

_You have to at least _try. Inner Sakura chided and Sakura knew she was right. She had to try-

-which meant she had to gain more of Sasuke's trust.

Sakura shivered, not entirely out of insincerity, from the chill night air and cuddled closer inside of Sasuke's grip. Immediately, a surge of warm emotion erupted from where her face met his throat line and the dark haired man couldn't help smiling at the simple action.

There were few times in Sasuke Uchiha's life in which he found himself genuinely happy. The majority of the times he found himself in one such time…was when he was with this girl.

* * *

The hooting of an owl woke Sakura up.

She gasped awake and found that she was in silk bed. The padding beneath her was soft and obviously cotton filled while the coverlets drawn to above her breasts were made of white satin. She turned on her side and saw that Sasuke was resting next to her.

She must have fallen asleep during the trip here, wherever 'here' was.

Sakura gently sat up, careful not to wake Sasuke, to look around.

By the looks of the decorated fixtures on the walls, the ornate paintings and even the small koi tank in the back, Sakura guessed this was some kind of inn. The mattress she was on was huge and obviously made for a couple. Why had Sasuke checked out this room for them?

Some sort of pseudo-anniversary vacation?  
She almost laughed at the absurdity of that idea. Celebrating the year of her captivity? As if.

And yet, as Sakura looked back down to see Sasuke's sleeping, tranquil expression…a part of her heart couldn't help wrenching in…sour melancholy. And almost…pity.

Just what exactly was it that had happened to him, to make him treat her like this?

Why did he have to take her…so obsessively? Why did he have to hurt her?

Sakura could tell that just with his looks and powerful chakra moves, she would have admired him easily from afar. If not fallen in love with.

So then why?

Sakura sank back down into the silk mattress, much to Inner Self's anger: _NO! Don't get back down! Use this moment to runaway, while he's asleep!_

He's probably got some trap justu laid across the threshold of the door, she argued truthfully. She could feel no restraint on any of her limbs right now which meant the man must have taken some other precaution to prevent her from leaving, should she wake up while he was asleep.

Or perhaps he wasn't even really asleep right now.

The man was too careful for her to _take a risk _in outsmarting.

Inner Sakura was about to rise again in absolute fury, about to bring up a slew of insults about her being a spineless cowardly shell of her past self-

And besides, running away would do nothing to help her endeavor in getting him to trust her, would it?

Inner Sakura fell silent at this.

Remembering her vow to lure him into trusting her, Sakura decided that now was just as good as any to put the plan into motion.

Regardless of how she felt for the man, Sakura knew she had to get away from him. It was the best _healthiest _option for her…and probably him too. No one should be as obsessed about anyone else, as he was with her.

Thinking that Sasuke was most likely _not_ asleep all the way, the pink haired girl purposely lowered her head and brushed her lips against his forehead, kissing him chastely in an adoring manner.

This was the first time she'd ever done such a thing to him, her captor and it sickened Sakura on the inside when she thought about it…but she kept this from leaking in her actions.

Now was not the time to be emotional.

She sunk into the bed deeper and curled herself up against his front, while wrapping her arms around his waist to draw him in closer.

A sigh of content reached her ears and Sakura wondered if it was genuine or not. There was after all no way she could tell if he was truly asleep or not without him revealing it.

And he didn't.

Sasuke stayed motionless, chest rising and falling in a normal resting manner and Sakura wondered if all of this was just a waste of time for her.

It would do her no good to feign affection to him when he wasn't even aware of it!

_Patience. Patience. _Her Inner self chided in quick. _Don't get bogged down by minor inflections. Even if he doesn't know this, just consider it as practice._

If someone had told Sakura, a year ago, that she would one day be pretending to love a man that had raped and kidnapped her, she would have probably pounded that person within an inch of their life. For underestimating her.

Because back then Sakura took pride in taking care of herself. She took care of all her problems using honest methods. And while that didn't mean she had never lied before, especially when it came to enemies, Sakura preferred to solve her problems head on, instead of with chicanery.

Like she was doing right now.

How could she have fallen so much that pretending to have Stockholm Syndrome was the only way for her to avoid pain?

And suddenly, she was crying within his chest.

Sakura didn't mean to but the tears refused to stop and she sobbed into his white half-zipped shirt like it was the only thing good in the world.

How pathetic was she that the only thing she could find comfort in was the very person that had caused her this misery?

She hated herself for who she had become and she hated the man before her for turning her into this but she didn't know how to revert back.

Sakura buried her head into the crook of Sasuke's neck and cried out all the misery in her heart.

Sasuke stayed completely motionless against her.

Yes, he had been awake from the instance she'd woken up…but had chosen to remain still when he'd felt her cuddling up close to him. What was she up to? He'd thought to himself, for he wasn't foolish to think she had actually fallen for him after everything that had happened. And yet, she drew even closer to him, choosing to revel inside his unconscious hold instead of say staying as far away on the other side of the bed (as she'd always previously done whenever he chose to lay down with her).

How was he supposed to make of this?

When she started crying Sasuke nearly lost all resolve…but he remained still and let her just cry everything out.

He was never good with her when she was sobbing, namely because he'd never dealt with sobbing girls before her.

_"Don't leave me! If you go…I'll scream and-"_

Sasuke blanched at the memory, pushing it back. In Sakura's depressed state, she didn't notice his slight movement and thought he was still asleep.

Sakura moved so that the right side of her face fell right up against the unzipped section of his white shirt that had turned almost gray from too many washes and usage. She now sobbed right against his skin as she spoke weak and pitifully: "I don't know what I did to you to deserve this…but I just…wish you would stop…"

She was speaking softly and hardly enough for anyone to hear, unless they were awake.

"I just wish I knew who you were."


	5. Chapter 5

"Eat, you're too skinny," Sasuke instructed strictly as he forced her sitting down into the chair before a rounded table, sitting on top of which was an enormous array of extravagant dishes. They ranged from savory dishes like steamed eel with soy sauce in pork drippings on a bed of seaweed, beef tendons grilled until tender and translucent to sweet delicacies like mango short cake on top of a flaky crust and even bubble tea in five different colors and flavors.

"…is this all for me?" Sakura asked in bewilderment as she folded her hands timidly across her lap.

To be honest, she was quite hungry. There were often times in the past, during her captivity inside the steel room that Sasuke was late in bringing her meals. Sometimes he'd be so late that she would pass out from sheer hunger and then by the time she woke up she had already slept through half the day, having eaten only once in the morning.

As a result of this uneven eating schedule, Sakura's body had shorn pound after pound to keep itself going. By the time their anniversary had come up, her ribcage and hip bones had become quite visible in a frightening manner.

Sasuke had started worrying about her health, which was why he'd purposely set up this little segue of a vacation; among other things, it also had the purpose of simply taking her out for fresh air and regaining of nutrients.

Sasuke answered her question with only a nod.

Sakura dared a glance up at him. "Where did you get all this?"

"I didn't steal it if that's what you're asking," Sasuke answered with a scoff while looking away and folding his hands. He walked to look through one of the three windows inside their room. "Eat. I'm not going to tell you again."

And Sakura bit her lip, remembering her plan but also not wanting to anger him. Obliging him, she took a mantou from the nearest basket and ate quietly. After she'd finished the bread off, she turned back to look at Sasuke.

"Could you…eat with me?" Sakura asked timidly and the man came to look away from the window to meet her eyes, causing her to immediately add in fear: "I mean…there's just so much food-"

"Eat what you can. I've already eaten," the man responded quickly as he went back to looking out the window.

And Sakura could only bite her lip again. What was he so focused on?

Suddenly, right as she wondered that Sasuke pounded his fist against the frame of the window, in anger.

"Damn." Sakura heard him swear beneath his breath before he tore away from the glass panes. Sasuke quickly gathered up his katana and raced to the front door, opening it but not stepping out, he turned around to face Sakura once more: "Don't you dare try to leave this room while I'm away. I'll _know _if you've tried anything when I get back."

And with that he slammed the door close, leaving Sakura just as confused as ever.

It was obvious he was going to confront someone but who?

And why was he so miffed about the individual?

* * *

_Blood._

_Wounds._

_Critical._

_Fatal._

_Death._

_Only two left standing._

Bodies of Konoha's ANBU ops laid strewn across them both on the forest battlefield. Sasuke breathed in heavy breaths as he stood opposite of his slightly more wounded, opponent.

An opponent with blond hair and blue eyes.

"You're not taking her from me," Sasuke seethed dangerously while gathering up his chakra again. The Mangekyo Sharingan flashing in deep hatred.

"She's not yours to keep!" Naruto Uzumaki shouted back; instantly his entire body burst into black flames.

Amaterasu. The fires that never stopped burning.

But that was just a clone and another Naruto appeared behind Sasuke, cringing.

Naruto couldn't believe the…extreme technique his once closest best-friend tried to use on him. Without hesitation.

Sasuke turned instantaneously to glare at the real one; immediately it burst into flames too.

"Wrong again friend," this time Naruto came down from on top of him with a kunai knife, aiming right for his eyes. The blond boy impaled-

-a purple aura. Naruto shrieked as a maroon demon suddenly encased Sasuke on all sides and rose up to at least fifty feet in the air. The skeleton's arm rose to grip his body, squeezing hard-

"I'm going to tell you this once, Uzumaki," the dark haired man, now with one severely bleeding eye but still incredibly powerful chakra said while turning to face his now suffocating best friend. "Sakura is mine; _no one_ is separating her from me."

And with that he tossed the blond boy hard onto the ground, from at least thirty feet of height. Naruto landed flat onto his back; a sickening crack sounded through the air and Sasuke only smirked wider.

This was the real Naruto alright.

"If you want her, come back to me when you're no longer a weakling."

He turned to leave but the blond boy, who was still in absolute agony yelled nonetheless loud enough for Sasuke to hear: "You…never even liked her before…before-"

"SHUT UP!" Sasuke said while suddenly throwing a kunai with striking accuracy down towards the boy. It landed just millimeters to the side of his throat.

Naruto's entire body was quaking in fear as the man stepped close to his prostrate form on the ground.

Sasuke's foot dug right into Naruto's chest, causing a pillar of blood to come gushing out of the boy's mouth.

"What's in the past shall _stay _in the past," Sasuke intoned the word 'stay' while pressing his boot into the boy's chest until he heard the satisfying crunch of a few ribs cracking. Naruto screamed in pain; he felt like everything in his body was broken.

But he nonetheless continued talking: "…you're just-" he coughed up a series of blood spatters before finishing: "-plagued…with guilt."

Sasuke's sharingan tightened in absolute hatred and yet Naruto only continued, not afraid of death if it meant possibly convincing his friend to stop what he was doing: "…you will eventually lose…interest in her-"

"Keep talking, let's see how long you can keep that up with a hole in your throat." Sasuke raised another kunai knife up in his hand, to deliver the finishing blow….

* * *

It was nighttime by the time Sakura heard the doorknob to their room twisting.

She jumped sitting up in her position on the bed. Her hands flying nervously to her white robe, to make sure it was closed properly.

True to his warning, Sakura hadn't dared to step out of their room, from fear that he really had set up some kind of trap. And while Inner Sakura had scolded her daftly for this she'd argued that they were still trying to do their plan.

Or so that's what she'd told herself.

_Because part of her was still unsure of how she felt for the man._

And as the door to her bedroom flew open, letting Sasuke's bloodied body fall headfirst into the room, Sakura threw all inhibitions away and acted on impulse: she ran to help him.

"Sa-Sasuke, what happened?" His entire body was covered in abrasions and cuts the size of her index were already starting to fester. One of Sasuke's eyes were also sealed shut and swollen with dried blood caked completely on the seams.

Sakura helped him to the bed of the room and moved to get the first aid kit but a tight grip on her wrist stopped her. The girl nearly fell over when her body was jerked also onto the bed, landing right next to him.

Even in his injured state, he was still stronger than her.

"I'm fine," Sasuke intoned chillingly and Sakura didn't really question him. While his injuries were numerous, his body didn't seem to be in any critical condition. Or at least, he didn't show that he was.

Sakura bit her lip, not arguing but still very worried and staying pressed up close against his side. She didn't realize it but Sasuke felt it: her breasts were pressed up tight against the side of his upper arm. Yes, even in his injured state he still thought about her body.

Sasuke had never been like this with any other girl in the past before; and never cared to. While countless ones had thrown themselves at his feet, just desperate for even a word from him, he'd never spared any of them anything in the past before.

They all disinterested him.

Even Sakura herself.

And yet, here he was, consumed by everything that was the pinkette and more. His thoughts and actions completely revolving around her as they once did for Itachi, his brother. Sakura was what he lived and breathed for and his obsession scared even himself.

_You will eventually lose interest in her._

While Naruto's words still infuriated him, part of Sasuke hoped that they would eventually come true.

Because he didn't like himself when he was around her.

Sakura gasped when his lips suddenly claimed her cherry ones, a moment later his head came to bury itself into her bosom, right at the opening of her robe. Sakura, despite how many times he'd already claimed and seen her naked form, plumed crimson at this.

Sasuke didn't care. His sweat-matted, dirt-caked body came to smother her clean one, onto the mattress as he moved on top of her but didn't do anything else. He sighed into the softness of her fleshy breasts, breathing in deep her sweet scent.

No, he would never let anyone take her away from him.

"Sa-Sasuke?" Sakura inquired tentatively but the man hushed her.

"Just stay with me."

And Sakura did. Part of her rationalized that it was because he would get angry at her if she didn't but a part of her inner self faced the truth: she liked having him hold her, just like this. No lust. No possession. No insanity.

Just him and her.

Sakura sighed too as her hands came to thread themselves into his still partially sweaty, and as a result, glistening black hair. He reeked of sweat and gritty Earth. He was so dirty.

But she didn't mind.

After all he'd already soiled her beyond recognition.

_Her innocence._

_Her purity._

_Her naivety._

And Sakura didn't mind getting a little bit dirtier.


	6. Chapter 6

Sakura had fallen asleep listening to his heartbeat.

And she woke up to the thrumming of his hands, against her tempo as his fingers combed her hair.

Green eyes flashed open; her head was lying on the base of his lap and her beautiful pink hair was fanned out behind her, being admired by Sasuke's elegant lacy fingers. The man may have been one of the most masculine, handsome man across the Shinobi world but he still had hands that could have been mistaken for a princess, lithe and slender.

Sakura's eyes wandered over the hand that wasn't running through her locks, the one that stood listlessly in front of her face, resting on top of his knee. It was alabaster white, like the rest of him and undeniably beautiful looking, even with the tiny (though numerous) calluses on his finger joints. No doubt they had come from too many years of intense fighting.

Part of her never wanted to leave this moment, as much as her Inner Sakura told her she should.

_He was a kidnapper. He was a rapist. He was psycho-_

Give it up! Sakura shouted suddenly inside her mind.

Yes, he was all these things and it was so wrong for her to feel this way but she couldn't help it.

It'd been a year since she'd had any sort of relationship, _of any kind, _from _anybody. _No friends. No family. No love…

-except for what Sasuke was continually offering her.

That she'd always rejected.

_AND SHOULD STILL REJECT!_

Sakura scrunched her eyes shut. She was only human…and-

_She wasn't a strong girl. People always thought she was but she was really quite weak on the inside._

-she just wanted the ache in her heart to go away.

Even if he had been the one to put it there.

"Sasuke…"

The man hadn't been expecting her to speak when she did; he'd already known that she was awake but had chosen not to acknowledge it, for the sheer reason that he wanted to stay like this with her for a little longer.

"Why me?" she asked him and it took all his willpower not to stiffen up with…unease.

She didn't have to clarify; he knew exactly what she was asking.

"Because…" he trailed off for a moment, thinking of the right words. Then finally intoning: "You and I-"

"…we were…-"

Sasuke cleared his throat, he had had enough; he shoved her off of him, not-so-gently and stood up from the bed. "Go take a bath, I've already taken one and you still smell like from when I came back earlier."

Oh yeah, he'd completely smothered her while he'd still been caked in battle grime and blood. Sakura had to bite back a scowl for him telling her to get clean when **_he _**was the reason she needed to in the first place.

He moved to stand in front of the window once again, folding his arms and standing on guard.

_Who was he always weary of?_

Tsunade?

Sai?

…Naruto?

Had the blond haired boy finally come back from his voyage across sea with Might Guy, Aoba and Yamato? They had taken him to train and do a secret S-rank mission together but wasn't supposed to be due back for another four years, at least, which was why Sakura hadn't placed him high on her potential-people-to-rescue-her-from-Sasuke list.

But now that she thought about it, next to Tsunade and the current Kages, Naruto probably was the only one that could confront Sasuke.

_Naruto._

Truth be told she missed the boy. He'd been the closest she'd ever gotten to a boyfriend…and things may have prospered further if he hadn't been assigned away by the Hokage, leaving her alone at seventeen and the year right before her abduction.

She'd never known about his feelings until after he'd left, after a weary Sai (her usually silent teammate in Team 7) had grown weary of Naruto's idleness and decided that Sakura needed to know.

After all, Naruto had loved her since "their very first days as Genin underneath Kakashi-sensai." A statement that Sakura had reacted to with stunned wide eyes and initial skepticism. She…hadn't known how to make of it at the time, having only ever given her thoughts into her studies due to her parent's strict guidelines.

In the end, Naruto had sailed away and Sakura still hadn't been able to make up her mind.

Then Sasuke had appeared.

And her life had turned from happiness to inner turmoil.

What should she feel for this man? For Naruto?

_Hatred._

_Anger._

_Bitterness._

_Love._

_Longing._

All of these feelings could be applied to either one of the men, really. The harsh feelings on Naruto because he'd abandoned her when she'd needed him the most…and Sasuke, well for being Sasuke.

And suddenly Sakura felt really angry at the dark haired man that currently stood with his back to her.

Take a shower. Say she loved him. Don't runaway. Be obedient. Order after order and yet the man refused to give her anything in return! Nothing she wanted he ever gave to her, unless he also got something in return and the sick unfair duality of their relationship was finally grating on Sakura.

Who was she kidding? How could she ever love a man this selfish.

Sasuke turned after Sakura's prolonged immobility at listening to his orders. He came to glare threateningly at her but found the same kind of look staring back at him, the first time in a long time.

"What are you doing?" he asked her strictly and Sakura only continued staring at him hard. Unbeknownst to him, her fists were clenching tight at her sides now.

"Wh-" He was interrupted when the pinkette suddenly lunged towards him with her fists.

She didn't care. She didn't care. She didn't care.

Whatever the consequences were, she had to teach this man that he couldn't get away with treating her like…like-

-_nothing._

Sakura's fist aimed for his right cheek but Sasuke caught it easily and his hand tightened mercilessly against the closed appendage.

"AH!" Sakura screamed as her nails, still inside the fist, were forcibly stabbed into the flesh of her palm due to his constricting. Tears leaked into her eyes from the pain but she wasn't going to be stopped.

Her knee came up to try and jab him in the abdomen but Sasuke evaded it too by twisting her shockingly fast so that his front now pressed against her backside while her arm was twisted in a grotesque angle behind her.

Something popped in her shoulder, causing Sakura to scream in agony again.

Sasuke gritted his teeth; he never enjoyed hurting her. "Had enough yet?"

"NO!" Sakura cried before moving to bite the hand locked presently on her shoulder (to leverage her arm behind her while the other hand still held onto her fist). Sasuke felt the immense pain from her bite but he endured in his scream, as he threw her onto the soft padding of the mattress again.

Sakura fell in a pitiful heap of messy pink hair and raking sobs.

She was so weak, it was pathetic.

Sakura tried to move into a fetal position but she found herself completely unable to move her left arm. It must have been sprained, if not utterly dislocated. Sakura's crying only became deeper at this acknowledgement; now she was truly defenseless against him.

Not that she could really protect herself to begin with.

Sasuke tsked at her weeping sight; she'd brought all this upon herself.

And yet, he couldn't help the flood of guilt that rushed through his core right then, directed solely towards the frail pink girl that lied broken, in almost every sense of the word, before him.

After a second, Sasuke sighed and moved towards the bed.

Sakura whimpered in fear when she heard the footsteps but could do nothing else when she felt his weight across the bed and then strong arms drawing her sitting up. He propped her up against the headboard of the bed and picked up her listless arm into one of his hands, causing her to wince in the process.

Without warning, he snapped the joint back in place.

"AGH!" Sakura cried, tears of pure pain marring her cheeks instead of ones from sadness.

As soon as she could move properly again, Sakura scampered to as far at the end of the mattress as she could manage from him, hugging her knees to herself.

Sasuke tsked again at her sight. She was acting so much like a stubborn child. "Don't take a bath right now, if you so wish. Just know that I'll expect you clean by the time I get back."

And with that Sasuke got off the bed and made to leave for the door to their suite, when something Sakura said caught his ears.

"Excuse me?" he turned to face her once again, anger completely gracing his elegant features, far more than it had a few moments ago.

"I SAID I'LL HAVE KILLED MYSELF BY THE TIME YOU GET BACK!" Sakura shouted at the top of her lungs. Sasuke grimaced; he'd been wondering if their minor brawl earlier would have drawn attention to anyone but now he was certain that it had.

They had to leave, fast.

The thought of her rebelling again during their vacation had occurred to him but Sasuke had counted on him having broken the fight out of her by now.

Apparently not.

Though, even if he hadn't counted on them having to hastily runaway, for the exact reason of her dissenting, he had still prepared for the worst: he had packed only disposable things or them.

After all, he hadn't been called a genius by being careless.

Sasuke's movements were so fast that Sakura's eyes couldn't follow them all. In an instant he'd hauled her up by the collar of her white robe, before picking her up into his arms. The pinkette swallowed in paralyzing fear at the fury inside his black irises.

That now didn't look so black anymore.

In fact, she was sure it wasn't her imagination anymore: his eyes were deadest red. Both of them had a black pupil, red irides, and black sclerae. While Sakura had seen this on him only a _few _times before, she'd always thought that it was just the play of her imagination because it appeared so fleeting and quick.

She didn't know what they were.

Was this some kind of jutsu?

She didn't have time to think as Sasuke suddenly vanished with her from within their suite. They teleported, in a manner of speaking, with chakra.

In an instant, Sakura found herself underneath the radiance of a full moon that hung large and ominously close looking behind her.

But that wasn't what caught her attention most right then. They were standing on water! Or rather Sasuke was as he held her. Absolute waves completely surrounded her on all sides without even a shred of land.

They were on the ocean.

She was suddenly faced with the imminent fear that if Sasuke dropped her right then, she would most likely drown without chakra to stand like he was right now upon its surface. Sakura could swim but was doubtful she could make it to any shoreline before her muscles gave way to parethesia and she was overtaken by the current.

Green met red in seeking confusion.

Sasuke was wearing his usual v-neck white shirt and rope binded pants (he must have gotten dressed while she was still asleep) while Sakura was still in the inn's issued white bathrobe. The way he held her, with one arm under her knees and the other supporting her shoulders, caused the majority of her weight to shift to her center. As a result, the white sash -and only thing keeping her robe close- was loosened significantly in every part except her waistline, where the knot was strongest.

A hefty amount of her legs and cleavage was revealed to Sasuke then but he for once didn't pay notice.

"You want to die? Fine." Was all he said before Sakura found herself falling, suddenly having water flood into every one of her orifices.

"Ah…bugh…agh!" Sakura's head bobbed up and down as she struggled, in her nervous fear, to gain buoyancy. Sasuke knelt on one knee, balancing still on the waves with chakra, to look down on her.

"What do you want, Sa-ku-ra? Tell me," he said conceitedly above her.

She. Hated. Him.

So much right then.

Sakura knew he wanted to hear her call out, for him to help her in that moment. So she would admit to needing him.

DREAM ON.

Sakura kicked the base of her legs, herself, causing the intuitive pain that came from a rough bruise and her legs stopped their reflexive kicking. Sakura's arms fell to her sides and she started falling-

-only to not fall?

Sakura's eyes burst open and she saw herself, standing in shallow water that just barely touched her calves. She looked around herself and found that not only was it not an ocean they were standing on but that it was a pond, in the center of a forested area. Deep evergreen trees surrounded the fifty feet diameter of the pool they were presently in the center of.

Her dark haired captor stood right before her.

As soon as she opened her mouth to speak, Sasuke pounced on her, knocking her straight into the shallow pond. The crystal clear lake was just as clean as it looked, there was no sedimentary earth that was unsettled upon her entry and the water felt cool against her skin, though she was more concerned with Sasuke's wandering hands than anything else.

They sought and groped her flesh while simultaneously shoving the now soppy heavy white robe into the water, leaving Sakura naked beneath him.

"Did you really think I was going to let you leave me, so easily?" Sasuke asked heavily, after separating their kiss to suck on her neckline.

The pinkette realized what had just happened to her: genjutsu. Sasuke had placed her under it as soon as they left the inn.

Not even to make her give in…just to torture her.

"St-stop!" Sakura pleaded while her hands tried desperately to keep him away. Sasuke let his deep v-neck shirt fall behind his shoulders to reveal his complete upper half as he bent down towards the pinkette again.

He kissed her with longing need and deep hunger that shook Sakura to the core.

The girl tried to squirm out of the lip lock but his strong palms came to lock her head in place again.

A knee came to stick in between her legs, forcing them apart-

"Why me?!" Sakura cried only after he broke apart their kiss to lick down her throat line; he hadn't thought it was possible but the clear water made her skin taste even sweeter than it normally did.

Deep sobs rose up in her chest but Sakura gave in by then, letting her arms fall to her sides. Why had she even bothered fighting? There was absolutely no point in doing anything against him.

_"I'm so in love with you, I can't even stand it!"_

_"If you would only be with me…" _

The memories flooded back to Sasuke right as he penetrated her, forcing her deeper into the floor of the pond. Sakura's scream resonated deep in the otherwise, empty forest canopy.

_"I'm begging you…don't go!"_

More and more that night, near the exit of Konoha, filled his mind.

And Sasuke didn't know why.

He growled in…frustration, anger…resentment? Right against her skin as he suckled her nipple, causing a throaty moan to part from Sakura's lips, who placed his painful force on his desires.

Water nearly covered her entire body on all sides and flooded more than halfway up the thickness of her body lying on her back. It was all she could do to prevent herself from drowning while being aroused by Sasuke's tender touches.

Her short hair was fanned out around her while a few stray strands clung uncomfortably to Sakura's face, though she didn't bother to swipe them away.

Soon, Sakura felt the familiar coiling inside her abdomen and she found herself aroused once again, against her will. She gasped in wanton desire when he started the initial slow rhythm, no longer trying to hide it. Sasuke knew what he was dong to her and he knew what she felt.

What was the point?

Soon, Sasuke was all but pounding into her and it was all Sakura could do not to scream his name in pleasure, as her hips reacted intuitively to meet his, again and again. As soon as she did this, Sasuke's thrusting intensified three fold as his pleasure grew near its peak.

Sakura felt his lips capture hers again, tongue seeking and ravishing.

"Sakura…" he whispered heavily against her cheek, once their kiss broke.

_"If you have to go…"_

"Ah!" she couldn't help the final cry of euphoria as he stayed tense and deep within her, right before he filled her to the core.

_"…take me with you."_

"…don't ever leave me."


	7. Chapter 7

**Note: Everything from the start of the story till the end of it (that obviously hasn't occurred yet) has actually happened and Sakura's memories /thoughts are not incorrect there. So yes, Sasuke really did rape Sakura and imprison her for a year.**

* * *

Sasuke sat next to an open campfire as Sakura slept on the opposite side.

She'd fallen unconscious immediately afterwards and Sasuke had laid out a tarp for her to rest on before placing a few large tree leaves over her as a makeshift coverlet.

He'd then set to air dry all of their clothes. He'd changed her and himself into the spare set of clothes he'd brought. Now she was dressed in that iconic battle ware of hers that he had never paid attention to in the past before.

That battle-ware of hers that now he couldn't stand seeing her wear anything but.

Sasuke couldn't help smiling as he saw her stirring in her sleep, mumbling incoherently. She was acting, as much as he hated to admit to liking this, so _cute._

She was probably the only thing with a cute side that he would like.

A few leaves fell off her shoulder and the pinkette was now shivering. He moved over and extended his hand to replace them when her palm suddenly shot out, grasping his in a vice-like grip. He thought she had awoken at first but then he saw that her eyes were still close.

He tried prying her grip loose but Sakura suddenly cuddled against his soft hands, caressing his fingers with the softness of her face.

Sasuke gulped.

He tried prying himself out when she suddenly cried: "No! Don't go!"

"I don't want you to…leave me…"

Sasuke smiled at her statement; he thought he would never hear her say those words to him again.

"…Naruto."

The Uchiha's eyes tightened in fury. Naruto. NARUTO?

He bent down low, ready to jerk her awake and punish her for thinking about the retarded blond boy when a loud explosion suddenly sounded behind him.

Sasuke turned with lighting reflexes in its direction; judging by the rustling behind him, Sakura had woken up too.

When his sharingan took in the sight before him, he growled in fury.

Or rather, the sight above him, floating on a cloud of dust.

"Gaara of The Sand," Sasuke intoned angrily.

Sakura gasped when her sleep deprived eyes adjusted to the sight of the red haired allied Kazekage. After the Fourth Great Shinobi War, an alliance had been forged between Sunagakure and Konohagakure and the two villages now helped each other out thru trade or warfare.

And plus, Gaara was a good friend of Naruto's…so perhaps, if the red haired man could save her, he would be able to take her to where her best friend was presently at (after all it'd been a year since she'd last heard from him).

Sakura could only hope.

"Sasuke…" Gaara intoned slowly as he floated above the duo, with his arms folded across his chest. He carried with him his iconic sand filled gourd and dressed in the red robes he'd adapted to as Kazekage. His gaze locked with Sasuke's.

"Every Kage has received a personal plead from Tsunade to arrest you upon sighting."

Sakura gasped. Really?

That meant that…every village was trying to find her.

The Uchiha just laughed. "Is that supposed to intimidate me?"

Gaara continued: "As an internationally wanted man, you yourself should know what fate awaits you, should you be arrested."

The corner of Sasuke's lips rose, as if the beginning forms of a crooked smile, when Sakura suddenly burst standing up behind him and took off, in the opposite direction of both men, heading for the woods.

As soon as she got more than 3 feet away from the Uchiha, without him having to turn around or even spare a glance at her, a fiery wall of eight feet in height erupted from the ground around Sakura, completely caging around her in a circle.

"Ah!" Sakura gasped as she made herself stock still in the center. She had almost no leeway between herself and the burning walls. One false move and she would be burnt to a crisp.

Sasuke stole a glance at her out of the corner of his eyes and smirked, knowing she couldn't go anywhere or have anyone come near her.

The sand demon's expression had turned upright in shock when Sakura got imprisoned but now returned to their stoic state as he leered down at the Uchiha again. "Sasuke…if you care for the girl, you would let her go."

Sakura felt her heart skip at this statement.

Even though the sadistic man had just raped her a few moments ago…she couldn't help the elation that filled her at the possibility that…

The man's cold laughter, in response to Gaara, sounded unanimously into the air, breaking Sakura's heart.

"Let her go only if I care for her?" Sasuke reiterated the humorous statement. "Well, then I suppose, I could never let her go."

Sakura's expression paled.

Of course he didn't…

How silly of her.

He just…enjoyed using her body.

Gaara's expression deadpanned but he tried another approach, always the pacifist if it could be helped: "Sasuke…you and I both know she doesn't belong here."

Sasuke growled in anger at this statement, similar to when Naruto had told him that he 'would eventually lose interest' in her.

What made things worse was that Sakura had just heard everything Gaara had said. And she was learning too much. Even now he could feel Sakura's being stiffen up within his fire jutsu, as if in apprehensive confusion.

"You don't know what you're talking about," The Uchiha intoned strictly, the Mangekyo Sharingan appearing across his irises.

Gaara continued, undeterred. "Where she stands, right now, she is…an _abomination_."

Sakura gasped. What did the Kazekage just call her? She didn't understand why he would say that insult. Gaara was renowned for being a polite stoic man, never even resorting to insults for his foulest of foes. So why suddenly defame her like this? Unless, he had another reason for using that word…about her…

Sasuke growled again.

"I'll cut your tongue out. Then we'll see how you can convince me to let her go!" Sasuke intoned before suddenly propelling into the air with his Kusunagi aimed right towards the sand demon's head.

* * *

"Sakura!" a familiar male voice whispered quietly, though strongly, behind her and all Sakura could do was crane her neck to try and see through the flames.

She smiled at the familiar man crouched currently in the bush next to her.

"Neji! Thank god, get me out of here!" the pinkette cried in desperation, she could stand still like this for only so long.

Neji Hyuga focused his chakra into his eyes and called out his kekkai genkai: "Byakugan."

He examined every inch of the barrier and after a few moments, he acknowledged with austere apprehension, that the surface had no weakness.

"Sakura, I can't see any weak spot from the outside to undo this jutsu, try using your chakra fists to punch a wall from the interior."

"I-I can't," Sakura croaked embarrassingly. "Sasuke's crippled my chakra points."

Her ashen tone was expected: to be a shinobi without chakra was beyond condemning…and disgraceful.

Neji's face paled and then he moved to assess her statement, x-raying her entire vascular-chakra system. She was right. All of her chakra outlets were disconnected from the flow of her system and essentially the core. So she still had her chakra flowing (otherwise she would be dead) but she couldn't let it out anywhere.

Neji couldn't even fathom how Sasuke had managed to do this to her.

He sent a communication jutsu back to the ANBU headquarters: _'We need back up, fast.'_

* * *

Gaara's breaths came in labored steps now as he stood up from where he had been thrown onto the surface of the pond. Cuts, bruises and opened wounds completely obscured his skin as he stood up on the water to face his equally wounded opponent once more.

Sasuke Uchiha was indeed a formidable opponent…but Gaara surmised that he was probably around the same strength as himself.

Where the boy won out on was his intellect.

While Gaara had been called a prodigy too, the Kazekage wasn't foolish enough to deny that Sasuke was better in this realm than him.

Because he didn't mind fighting deviously.

During one of Gaara's Barrage of Sand attacks that Sasuke had just barely dodged against, the Uchiha cast the Kazekage into a Genjutsu. Whatever the illusion was didn't matter because the sand demon quickly broke out of it-

-to see a knee come straight towards his windpipe.

Sand had blocked the attack at the last minute, preventing him from taking damage but the Kazekage suddenly heard a rippling sound from behind him. Turning around, he realized his mistake: the Sasuke that had kicked him had been a shadow clone and the real one had sent a series of Fireball Jutsus straight into the pond, causing rapid evaporation.

Gaara sent his sands into the lake, causing the entire bed to dry up and essentially dousing the flames but by then Sasuke's desired effect had already taken place: the air around them was now hot and thick with moisture. Fog settled around them in obscuring danger and as a result, Gaara's sand became slowed significantly because the grains kept clumping together when tried to manipulate them.

They wouldn't form properly or not fast enough and soon Gaara couldn't match Sasuke's speed in attacks.

* * *

There was something severely wrong with the fire before Neji.

Why didn't the nearby foliage ever catch on fire by the sparks it let out? And why would Sasuke ever take such a high risk in hurting Sakura, potentially incinerating her even, when all he wanted was just to keep her?

All of this added up in Neji's mind to say that the barrier was some form of genjutsu, cast onto whoever looked at it…but the Hyuga's Byakugan should have been able to see through any deception like that.

And it looked very real before Neji's eyes right now.

* * *

With Gaara's sand not working accurately, Sasuke had easily deposited hit after hit upon the sand demon who dodged about two out of every five hits.

While Gaara may have defeated Sasuke in the past…he was no match for the man anymore. The man that had sunken to the deepest depths of evil for power.

The Uchiha stood with his Kusanagi stabbed directly into the sand demon's chest, ready to deliver a final fatal attack with his left fisted chidori, and rid Sunagakure of its current leader once and for all…when a series of explosions suddenly sounded across Sasuke's ears. The Uchiha retracted his sword and covered his ears in desperate pain.

He turned his head frantically from side to side and yet couldn't see the explosions that were sounding so prominently and fatally close to him. There was nothing except the calm forest setting.

What was going on?

He turned his head now back to see that Gaara had gotten up and was now smiling…triumphantly.

The explosions stopped.

But so did everything else.

Sasuke realized with horror that the world lay completely quiet around him.

He was deaf.

Sasuke roared in anger as he summoned Susanoo, the purple aura skeletal demon from Hell. Before Gaara could leap away (having been injured so much that his speed had diminished), the creature had wrapped its claws tight around the Kazekage's body.

It squeezed.

* * *

Neji had no choice, he had to ask Sakura to touch the barrier. He himself had already tested the validity of its heat by cutting off a piece of the flesh on his arm (with a kunai knife) and tossed it straight into the flames. It had immediately fried to cinders.

Sakura had cringed at the sight, as much as she could, standing still. She couldn't believe Neji was still asking her to test out the heat, after that awful exhibition.

"I know it sounds insane but there are some jutsus out there that are tied in blood, so it will harm everyone except whom the justu is tied with."

Sakura's face displayed her skepticism.

"Trust me!" Neji hurried, desperate now. "I have personally witnessed jutsus like this and Sasuke cares too much about you to risk anything."

The final few words caught Sakura's attention.

He. Cared. For. Her.

Did he?

And how could Neji be sure when she herself…was pondering that question almost every time she was near the man.

Even now, Sakura still didn't know.

But…she wanted to find out.

Sakura tentatively extended her hand towards the heat, already feeling from it an uncomfortable heat reaching up to her skin-

-she expected to burn up at any moment-

-but she didn't?

Opening her eyes, Sakura saw that her entire forearm stood safely thru the fire wall, as if it was some sort of ghostly mirage, in front of Neji's bewildered vision.

Suddenly, Sakura felt herself wrenched out by Neji and was pulled running from the scene.

* * *

Red blood exploded everywhere inside Sasuke's vision, and the entire battlefield, as the Fifth Kazekage was no more.

The Uchiha, even though he was the victor had sustained significant damage during that fight, not even including that he was now deaf. Sasuke's breaths rang labored and heavy as his hands dropped to his knees, trying to steady himself. More than half of the skin on his left arm had been completely scraped off from Gaara's attacks and it was bleeding profusely now in a frightening manner.

And yet, Sasuke didn't care.

He summoned his remaining chakra and quickly stopped the bleeding. He wasn't a medical-nin by any means but every shinobi learned the basic tourniquet jutsu during the Academy which allowed a person to slow blood flow to an area for three hours, thereby stopping severe hemorrhages. After the three hours, the user had to undo the jutsu or risk damaging the cells in their limb.

Sasuke would have healed himself long before then.

He would defeat any enemy.

Any shinobi.

ANYONE.

That tried to take Sakura away from him.

Right as he thought that, his eyes caught sight of the now empty fire genjutsu.

* * *

Sakura felt it and so did Neji.

It was like an explosion of chakra, _or anger_, from the battlefield that they had just left behind at.

Sakura gulped knowing full well who it belonged to.

Oh god. Oh god. Oh god.

Almost instantaneously, Sakura's feet stopped in the forest tracks; she couldn't leave him. She couldn't leave him. He would kill her.

The abrupt stop had caused her to stumble and Neji's grip to fall from her wrist. The man turned back, thinking she had tripped and moved to help her but Sakura suddenly slapped his hands away.

Neji had thought she had gone mad.

"No!" Sakura stated suddenly as she fought to get away from his palms. She stood up on her legs. "Just go! Y-you can't be seen with me when he-"

Sakura's words were cutoff when the very man she was trying to get back to transported to right before their vision.

"Sasuke!" Sakura cried while running to his form and -to both Neji and the Uchiha's surprise- wrapped her arms around his waist. At first Sasuke thought it was some kind of deception but the girl soon started sobbing into his blood caked shirt. "Oh god, Sasuke. I-I-I didn't mean-I'm sorry-"

She cried into his hold as his arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her in closer.

His Kusunagi extended out towards Neji as his Mangekyo Sharingan flashed dangerously towards the Hyuuga, who was all but bewildered at how..._devoted_ Sakura was to Sasuke. Or frightened.

"Wh-what in the world have you done to her?" Neji seethed furiously. Sakura was a friend he'd known since childhood and he would be lying if he said that he didn't care for her, though only in the platonic sense. And to see what was once a strong independent girl like Sakura Haruno become like this…

"You sick monster!" Neji shouted before sending a fist towards the Uchiha's head.

Sasuke blocked the hit, easily with his arm, while holding onto Sakura.

His Mangekyo Sharingan flashed, casting a Genjutsu but Neji saw right through it with his equally powerful eyes.

"Eight Trigrams: Air Palm!" Neji shouted before sending a blast of deadly chakra straight into Sasuke's abdomen.

The Uchiha took the full impact of the hit because his movements were still slowed from the significant chakra and energy he'd exhausted during his match with Gaara.

With the precision of Neji's attack, Sasuke was separated harmlessly from Sakura before he was sent spiraling horizontally through the air, some twenty feet away. The man's back collided with a thick spiky tree trunk and a sick crack sounded into the air before his body slumped to the ground.

Sakura's eyes widened.

Sasuke.

Acting purely on impulse, Sakura tried to run to help him but Neji's hand locked around her elbow, preventing her.

"No!" she cried frantically, with genuine tears already in her eyes. "I-I I can't just- I-"

Sakura didn't know what she was saying. "I have to help him!"

Neji suddenly jerked her violently, by her shoulders, to face him. "Sakura! Wake up! He's the enemy."

The pinkette parted her lips to respond but just then a deep seeded groan sounded before them and both of them looked to see that Sasuke was starting to recover. He got up on one knee, as if to propel himself up again-

-but he collapsed again while vomiting up a slew of blood.

"Sasuke!" Sakura cried in horror and started to shake Neji off again, now more than ever. The Hyuga knew he had no choice; with one slice of his palm, against the back of Sakura's neck, the pink haired kunoichi collapsed instantly into Neji's arms, unconscious.

Neji's Byakugan flashed again, locking with Sasuke's eternal Mangekyo Sharingan that glared at him with absolute fury, as if saying: _Don't you dare take her._

But Neji vanished nonetheless.

Unbridled fury begot in the pit of Sasuke's heart but he soon lost consciousness as well.

* * *

"I…I can't believe it."

Sakura heard the words, from somewhere next to her. Her eyelids felt too heavy still; she couldn't open her eyes. The voice sounded familiar but she couldn't identify it as it continued speaking:

"Sh-she, she's actually…"

"Be a little quieter, you might wake her," another female voice spoke and somewhere in the back of Sakura's mind a name started appearing: Shiz…une?

The first voice spoke again: "But she's actually here! In Konoha…this, this is…"

_"…unnatural." _Sakura recognized that last voice. It belonged to Tsunade.

Finally, Sakura had garnered enough strength from the voice of her mentor: she burst awake, sitting up.

Immediately, Sakura recognized her surroundings: Konoha Hospital. She'd spent most of her latter adolescence through it, being trained as a medical-nin. She was the only patient presently inside this medical quarter and standing by her bedside was Shizune, Tsunade and…Tenten.

Tenten suddenly ran up to hug her.

"Oh Sakura," the girl said, unaware of the way her hair buns were poking into Sakura's eyes uncomfortably.

The pinkette raised her hands up to hug the girl back, albeit half-heartedly. Truth be told, she'd nearly all forgotten about the girl during her captivity.

"I've missed you so much."

Sakura parted her lips, to respond with the same line but Tsunade suddenly grabbed a hold of Sakura's hand, as she was still being hugged by Tenten. The Hokage took her pulse and then her vitals (during which she ushered Tenten to let go) while Sakura just sat idly at the side, mind completely distracted elsewhere.

_How was Sasuke?_

_How were his injuries?_

_Was he still…alive?_

That last question nearly brought tears into her eyes. A silent croak was mouthed by her lips as the pinkette dipped her head low to the bed.

"Sakura, are you okay?" Tsunade asked her while gently making her lie back down. The Hokage saw the way her eyes glistened. "…is there something troubling you?"

The pink haired kunoichi opened her lips to respond…but she only just shook her head.

Tsunade sighed. "Sakura…"

There was an odd tone to her voice, like she was hiding something yet also trying to bring it up.

"How much of last year do you remember?" the Hokage asked her carefully and Sakura tried to think back…but every time she thought of anything Sasuke's face would just appear in her mind and divert her thoughts. His eloquent fingers. His beautiful silky hair. His...touch.

Sakura gave up after a few minutes, shaking her head and pressing her palms against her eyelids, frustrated. "I-I don't, I can't really think right now."

Tsunade hummed to let Sakura know it was okay. The pinkette inhaled sharply for a few moments, before finally letting her hands fall to her sides again.

It was only then that she realized that Tenten was no longer facing her, in fact, the girl's shoulders were hunched in a sort of shaking wounded way.

Next to her, Shizune had silent tears streaming down her face.

What was going on?

Her expression showed her confusion and Tsunade, who was the only one of the visiting trio that hadn't started sobbing yet, grasped Sakura's hands gently into both of her much bigger palms. "Sakura…you-"

The blond woman cut herself off, emotion rushing into to her voice as well, to make it croak.

Tsunade cleared her throat to continue again when Sakura suddenly cut in: "Where's Naruto? Kakashi? Ino, Shino, Shikamaru…and everyone else, how come only Tenten was here to see me?"

Tenten turned around quick, showing her tear streaked face, to chime in quick: "They wanted to be here, really they did. They've all just been delegated-"

"I've sent them to the borders. To the outskirts of Konoha and rid off any potential threats." Tsunade finished quick. "It has become quite evident that Sasuke is completely obsessed with possessing you. I could not risk him coming back-"

"So he's alive?" Sakura interrupted with wide eyes. Her mind raced back…trying to think…Neji had injured the man, before knocking her out. Knowing the Hyuga, the man would most likely go back to arrest Sasuke or execute the man right there.

Tsunade, Shizune and Tenten all noticed the excitement in her voice, perhaps more than a victim should feel for their attacker, but none of them chose to address it right then. They had far more pressing issues to confront at the moment.

The Hokage grasped Sakura's shoulders to get her attention again. "Sakura, focus, you need- I need to tell you something."

The firmness in her tone, slightly frightened her but the kunoichi fell silent, eyes locking with her blond haired mentor.

"You're…technically not alive right now."


	8. Chapter 8

Sakura's eyes seemed permanently widened in shock. "Wh-what are you talking about?"

Tsunade's grip on her shoulders tightened. "You…died fourteen months ago."

Sakura couldn't believe what she was hearing. Her mind couldn't process or make sense of any of it. "F-fourteen…months ago…"

She'd been packing for her trip to train with the Fifth Mizukage! How could Tsunade say this when, at the time, the Hokage herself had given her own recommendation? Her astonishment showed through her face and Tsunade pursed her lips before dropping her hands from Sakura's hands.

Keeping her eyes trained on the bedspread, the Hokage intoned slowly: "What's the last…thing you remember before…before Sasuke?"

Sakura eyebrows crossed; the complexity and absurdness of this situation finally wore down her patience. "I was walking home to my apartment when he-"

"What were you doing before then?" Tsunade interrupted urgently.

The pinkette frowned but complied: "I had been training in Konoha's Aquatic terrain, preparing for my three year training with The Fifth Mizukage."

Astonishment was not enough to describe the looks across everyone's faces, presently staring at her.

"Mizukage?" Tenten asked, bewilderingly.

Sakura clicked her tongue. "YES! That's what I said!"

Tsunade pursed her lips before coming to stare into her pupil straight into the eyes. "Sakura…all…no, I don't think all but…most likely the majority of what you think, as your life, is not true."

The kunoichi's jaw dropped. She couldn't think of what to say for a few seconds…and then she decided just on: "No…no, no…that can't-"

Sakura tried to get up from the bed.

"-be."

Tsunade's hand came to grip her forearm.

"NO!" Sakura stated while throwing the woman off with surprising strength and agility. Before Tsunade could recover, or before Shizune and Tenten could react, the pink haired kunoichi had stormed off out of the room and down the hospital hall.

As soon as she got more than sevent feet out of the room, wooden poles suddenly jutted out from the tiled floor of the hallway to encase her up on all sides, before meeting above her head. Sakura was completely sealed in.

Yamato.

His woodstyle jutsu.

Sakura identified it immediately.

In a few seconds, Tsunade stepped out from the hospital quarter she'd just sprinted from. The Hokage moved to place a hand on her shoulders, of which the girl immediately shucked off, as if the devil himself had tried to grip her.

Sakura's mentor was obviously hurt with the way she rejected her…but Tsunade understood. The pink haired kunoichi was still in shock.

Tsunade opened her mouth as if to speak but Sakura got there first: "What about Yamato? I _remember_ him, I know his jutsu. I-"

"Sakura!" Tsunade grabbed both of her shoulders, through the wooden bars, again. "You need to calm down. I told you already, not all of your memories are incorrect."

"But why are they like that?" Sakura cried indignantly and a man stepped up from a neighboring, dark-lit room. It was Yamato, to answer: "Sasuke altered them."

The kunoichi felt like her heart had been ripped out right then. "Wh-what?"

Tsunade could tell that this was breaking Sakura's heart so she added: "Unintentionally so, as it seems."

Sakura was just getting more confused. "What are you talking about?"

Tenten and Shizune had by then moved up to stand behind Tsunade. The latter inserted: "Do you remember how, when the Fourth Shinobi War had still been going on, there were reanimated bodies of the dead brought back by Kabuto to fight our side?"

Sakura didn't like where this was going. Were they trying to tell her she was presently a zombie?

"That…is not what you are right now." Tsunade added quick. "Those bodies had only a sliver of the host form's DNA inserted into another being that then takes on their old form."

"But th-that's not me you're saying?" Sakura reiterated and the Hokage nodded.

"Thirteen months ago Sasuke found another way to bring back the dead and implemented it, bringing you back to life right inside of your own body."

Sakura raised her palms up to look at the undersides of them. From what she could remember, the reanimated shinobi's always looked partially like a mummy, with grayed skin almost and fragments of the paper curses used to transform their bodies into the accurate shape.

She had none such things.

"We don't know the exact details but Sasuke was…somehow able to force your soul back into your body, thus reviving you from the dead, completely. At first, when we heard sightings of you, we had placed it to be gossiped rumors or enemy duplicity…"

Tsunade looked down. "But then I sent spies to investigate…the first time they found Sasuke, with you, you were unconscious, next to a campfire."

Sakura's eyes grew distant, almost blurred with a forgotten memory:

_Dirt._

_That was the first thing she felt against her face._

_Before she realized she was planted cheek first on the ground. In a swift motion, Sakura turned onto her side._

_Black hair was the first thing that caught her eyes._

_And then a cold ridiculously beautiful male face. He was staring at her with intense coal black eyes._

_He was the same man she'd seen in the lot of her apartment._

_And all too suddenly, Sakura's mind put two and two together._

_"AH!" she cried while scooting back from his elegant form; her back collided with the trunk of a large wide tree._

_She remembered him attacking her at the base of her apartment and then knocking her unconscious. Looking hastily around herself right now, Sakura surmised that she was in some kind of forest. He had kidnapped her!_

_The dark haired man moved to step towards her but Sakura quickly screamed: "NO! G-get back! Wh-who are you?"_

_His eyebrows crossed darkly…and angrily?_

_"What do you mean 'who am I?'"_

_His hand shot out and swiftly snatched her dainty wrist into his strong menacing grip. He squeezed it unintentionally tight._

_Sakura screamed as he pressed her tight against the tree. The girl turned her head from side to side to try and shake him off but it didn't work; he pressed his mouth deathly tight against her ear, successfully pinning the side of her face against the trunk._

_"This isn't funny Sakura," he whispered dangerously._

_How did he know her name?_

_The girl only continued squirming and all too suddenly, she felt a strong hand squeezing her right thigh, agonizingly tight. "I'm warning you, Sakura, you better st-"_

_His words were cut off by the sound of a huge explosion, sounding about twenty feet away from them._

_Sakura turned her head to look but suddenly a hand came to grip her chin and force her looking back at him._

_Red eyes._

_That was the last thing she remembered._

"Sakura?" Tsunade asked, right as the memory faded back into the recesses of her mind. The pink haired kunoichi shook her head, not really wanting to talk.

Tsunade continued nonetheless.

"We're not really sure why…but it seems something went wrong with the procedure and some of your memories got…altered…"

Sakura had stopped listening.

Now she understood why Tenten had embraced her like that. Why Shizune had cried. Sakura felt like her mind weighed ten tons. Her entire body felt too heavy and sluggish.

In fact, right as Yamato retracted the wooden bars (for she had calmed down significantly), Sakura collapsed onto the tiled hallway.


	9. Chapter 9

In fact, right as Yamato retracted the wooden bars (for she had calmed down significantly), Sakura collapsed onto the tiled hallway.

Tsunade immediately came to the front, gripping her by the elbows.

"Sakura! A-are you okay?"

But instead of responding, or showing any signs that she had heard the woman, Sakura's eyes rolled into the back of her head in a frightening manner.

"What's wrong with her?" Tenten asked, worried.

"She's having a seizure," Tsunade's concerned voice sounded distant in Sakura's mind but the pinkette barely heard that.

Her mind was somewhere else, back to the early meetings with Sasuke:

_The second time she woke up, Sakura found her arms and legs bound, but this time her wrists had metal chakra binding chains connecting her to the ceiling, while she lied on her back because of the heavy amount of slack on her manacles. She could literally feel her inner power being restrained by them.  
_

_Sakura sat up, frightened out of her mind._

_She was in some kind of log cabin room. The bed she lied on was modest and small, obviously intended for only one person to use. Wooden logs built up the walls and ceiling around her, making her think she was still somewhere in the woods. The only other furniture inside the room was a square wooden table with cheap wooden benches as seats._

Where was she?

What in the world was going on?

Who had that man been and why had he taken her?

_And right as she thought that the door to her room opened, that very same man stepped in._

Wow, he really was beautiful.

_Or he would have been if Sakura wasn't so afraid right now!_

_He stepped right up next to her bedside, eyes completely locked on hers._

_Sakura gulped._

_Only then did she notice the way his right fist was clenched tight and shaking next to his leg, as if he was extremely mad about something._

_Right as her gaze broke, the man suddenly pounced on her, shoving her flat onto the bed as his mouth locked with hers._

_The kiss swept through her and made her gasp; the man used that moment to stab his tongue into her mouth, probing and ravishing everything she had. Sakura's hands shoved against him but his chest felt too strong and too firm, like a brick wall above her._

_But eventually their kiss did break, so the man could come and suck on her throat. Sakura used that moment to scream: "Why are you doing this!"_

_She felt his lips purse, right above her skin, as if hesitating to answer her. But after a moment, she heard: "Because you've been gone for far too long."_

_Right as he said the last word, he tore off the sash that kept her robed outfit together. His mouth came to suck at her collarbone again, whispering breathily across the now wet skin: _

_"Because I couldn't once stop thinking of you."_

_Oh god, he was crazy!_

_She had never seen this man in her entire life before now. _

_"W-wait!" Sakura spoke desperately as his hands roamed freely up her sides. "Pl-please, mister! Don't-"_

_The man suddenly came to grip her jaw with a painful iron grip. "Call me Sasuke."_

_The way he said it…seemed like he was angrier at the fact that he **had **to say it. The pink haired girl swallowed in fear but complied: "Sasuke, please…don't-"_

_Her words were once again cut off as his mouth locked over hers in another furious kiss._

_It was as if everything she said just infuriated him more._

_His hands pushed apart the openings to her tunic, revealing her black skin tight undershirt beneath. In an instant, Sasuke had shoved the tank top up above her stomach and started kissing his way down._

_Sobs now rose up from within Sakura as his mouth met the top of her belted black pants. Her hands tried to shove his head away but Sasuke easily resisted her shoves and pulled off her belt. In an instant, the man came back up to meet her face._

_Before Sakura knew what had happened, he'd used the belt to bind both of her hands on top of the metal manacles, securing them together. This successfully shortened the slack her hands had from the ceiling and they were forced tight above her head, as he came kissing its way down her pelvic, inching her pants-_

_"Please SASUKE! I'm begging you!" Sakura pleaded once again, horrible sobs pouring from her chest. She was desperate, she didn't want her first time to be like this._

_It worked._

_Sasuke stayed on top of her but he stopped his ministrations; his breaths rang hot and heavy over her skin yet he didn't go any further._

_Even though he'd stopped, Sakura's sobs wouldn't. She continued crying, and her chest shook up in down from her short breaths; it didn't help when Sasuke moved back up to come hovering above her face._

_But he didn't kiss her._

_"Shh," he said, before a moment later sweeping the sweat clumped hair away from her face with his slender fingers. Sakura didn't fight his touch, too afraid of angering him again._

_Sasuke lied down next to her and drew her into his hold. The pink haired kunoichi continued crying, this time into his hold because there was no other option._

_He kissed her forehead._

Sakura burst awake, sweat heavily splayed across her forehead

She found herself in a bed, with pale green coverlets pooled on her lap…

This was her bed! Sakura looked around and sure enough, she was inside her bedroom at the Perkora Complex. Immediately, she shot out of bed. She was dressed in her pink pajamas but Sakura didn't care.

"MOM! DAD!" she shouted while jerking the door to her room open.

She stopped dead in her tracks at the threshold.

There stood Ino, camped outside of her room in an old blue sleeping bag. The pinkette kneeled down and gently shook the blond kunoichi awake.

"H..uh?" It took Ino a minute to realize who had awakened her, and then her eyes burst wide. "Sakura!"

"Yeah, it's me Ino."

The blond sat up fully to grip Sakura's upper arms. "Oh god Sakura, you…I'm so happy to see you awake finally."

"Finally?" Sakura was almost afraid to ask: "H-how…long have I been asleep?"

Ino bit her lip. "Three days."

Sakura's face paled.

Wh-what? How could that be? The last thing she remembered was being…told by Tsunade that she was a…reanimated Shinobi, more or less. She'd been imprisoned by Yamato…but Sakura could remember the bars receding...before nothing.

And now she was here.

Sakura felt her head grow woozy again; her being slumped and immediately Ino's hand reached out to steady her. The blond lowered the pinkette to the ground, and then fell to sit next to her.

"What has…what am I doing here?" Sakura asked weakly. "Where are my parents?"

Ino bit her lip again; Sakura immediately didn't like where this was going. But after a second, the blond merely said: "They're away…on a sea voyage, looking for you. Ever since rumors of you…coming back surfaced…they left Konoha in search of you."

"We've sent message that you're back, and it should have reached them by now so no doubt they're already on their way back to see you."

Ino smiled reassuringly but it did nothing to alleviate the unease within Sakura. There was just…something wrong about the way the blond said the news that made her distrust the message. Or perhaps she was just being paranoid…because it felt like she was continually being bombarded with bad news…and it was almost like she expected to get the next misfortune at any moment.

But Sakura said nothing about it bothering her.

Who knows, maybe they really were just far at sea.

Like-

Sakura gasped. "Where's Naruto?"

Ino flinched, which Sakura also noticed but didn't point out, but the blond just smiled and said fluidly: "He too is still away from Konoha, looking for you. You may not remember this but Naruto has joined the ANBU ops and during the year you were gone, Tsunade sent out several envoys to try and recover you back. He was a part of the teams, he-"

"Is he safe?" Sakura asked frantically; just the idea of her losing the blond haired boy she'd grown up with, terrified her. And while she wasn't sure if she could really stand anymore bad news, for she had a growing suspicion that Ino was lying to her, Sakura really just wanted to know if-

"He's completely fine; we even just got a correspondence from him, he's in the Borine Mountains. It'll take him a bit of time to get all the way back but he was so happy when he found out you're here." Ino laughed. "I wish you could have been there to hear his squeaky vo-"

Sakura slowly turned to sit right in front of her. "Ino, are you…telling the truth?"

"Of course I am," the blond kunoichi said with a smile that Sakura couldn't decipher as being false or true.

But she didn't say anymore.

* * *

Time passed absently for Sakura.

She found herself either staying in her room or being forced to traverse the streets "for exercise" by Ino. Because Sakura wouldn't have left the apartment otherwise.

The world was too big and too loud for her and when people came too close to her, she would shrink behind Ino. All her other friends took turns visiting her or taking her out into Konoha's bustling roads but Sakura's reaction was always the same: hardly talking except when asked a direct question and asking to go back within an hour or so of walking.

She became so withdrawn.

And, in an instance, on any given day-

-her mind would go to Sasuke. Before, while she'd been trapped in that suffocating obsession of his, she'd wanted nothing more than to get out of it.

Now, she wanted more than anything just to go back to his warm embrace because it felt so safe inside there.

As ironic as it was.

And she didn't have to think…with him always forcing her to do things.

Sakura almost wanted to laugh at the crude, twisted absurdity of that fact. Before, when she'd been training to go to Mei Terumi (which now she couldn't even be sure was real anymore), she'd taken pride in being independent and never depending on anyone else.

Never needing to depend on anyone else.

But ever since she 'met' Sasuke, for what she considered the first time, all of that independence had been stripped from her.

And maybe that was the way things were supposed to be.

Maybe, back then, she had always been a weak spineless girl that Sasuke could boss and throw around for his liking.

Maybe she was just that sort of girl and all this strength she thought she'd once had…had all been an illusion.

So now she was supposed to take that even her independence had been fake? That nothing about her childhood was definitive right now?

Sakura couldn't stand what life was throwing her in this moment.

What had she done to deserve this? First a heartless man's plaything for more than a year, then falling for said heartless man before she was promptly torn from him…a cry of misery tore through her throat and Sakura buried her face into her hands.

_What was she supposed to do now?_

Her life wasn't real.

Her memories weren't real.

Her feelings…

…they were real.

Sakura could be unsure of everything except for them. And the only thing they were directing her towards…Sasuke.

A cry of misery tore through Sakura's lips as she sunk to her knees, right up against the wall length window next to her bed. Everything about him called to her and everything about him possessed her to find him again.

He was like her drug. And after a year of having nothing but him intoxicating her senses…Sakura felt incomplete without him. Her body felt cold and empty…and almost like a zombie without Sasuke's presence and it was now that she was without him…did Sakura finally realized how attached she'd grown to him.

But could she go back to him? _Should _she go back to him?

* * *

Several people, on more than one occasion, offered to tell Sakura about how her life was before…but she rejected them all. She explained that even if they told her anything, it would have no meaning for her…because she couldn't validate any of it with her fake memories.

Everything they told her, she knew, would just confuse her feelings more.

Sakura had decided that the best course of action for her was to wait and have Sasuke explain everything to her when she confronted him again.

She would make him tell her.

Somehow.

Even if she couldn't get any of her chakra back. For that was exactly what Tsunade had told her. Sakura had asked the Hokage what exactly had Sasuke done to her...but the woman merely stated that she couldn't tell either. For she "had never seen such a jutsu before."

* * *

It would be a lie to say she grew accustomed to life without chakra, because she didn't.

No matter the validity of her memories, Sakura had still been raised and taught as a shinobi her entire life and now she couldn't be one. All those years of training…all those dreams of becoming a great Medical Nin…wiped away.

Unless she found Sasuke again.

Part of her knew this was wishful thinking but for more than one reason, he was her last hope.

And she had to find him again. For her memories, for her powers.

And simply, just for herself.

But she wouldn't seek him out.

No, Sakura had decided she couldn't do that. For a multitude of reasons, but mainly because she had no idea where he was. Too much time had passed already since she'd last seen him, unconscious and bleeding in the forest area…who knew if he was still there? Or if he was even still…

No, he was still alive.

She knew it. Something inside her, just told her he was still living.

And the point was, she had no idea where he was right now.

Or who had saved him.

* * *

Rain. The cool misted atmosphere covered his entire body while the droplets sounded heavy across his ears-

His ears?

Sasuke gasped awake, sitting up.

"It's about time, pretty boy," a familiar male voice sounded beside him and the Uchiha turned to stare straight into Suigetsu's purple eyes.

His vision blurred for a second and he lowered his head to rub the bridge of his nose...only to look up again quickly, in astonished realization.

He could hear again.

The memory of Gaara's treachery still stood prominently in his mind. As soon as the incident had occurred, Sasuke's calculative mind had figured out what had happened: the Fifth Kazekage had infused singular grains of sand with his jutsu. And with their battle, sand had inevitably fallen across his entire body, including his ears.

Right before Sasuke could deliver the finishing blow, Gaara had then ignited them all, like a million tiny bombs across his eardrums, deafening him.

And yet, here he was, able to hear again.

How…?

As Sasuke's longtime subordinate, Suigetsu had gotten used to the man's silent questioning looks. He could tell exactly what Sasuke was inquiring.

The white haired man cracked a wry grin. "Karin healed your ears."

Ugh.

The very thought of that obnoxious woman touching him while he was unconscious…Sasuke would have cringed, if he was the type of man to cringe.

Instead, Sasuke turned to face and stare directly into Suigetsu, locking gazes in an intimidating manner.

"Where's Sakura?"

The white haired man grinned again. "The other pink haired kunoichi, eh?"

Sasuke shot him a sharp glare.

Suigetsu laughed. "She was taken back to Konoha. Jugo's been keeping an eye on her."

"When we didn't get your midnight signal, we set off to find you, just like you instructed. Karin sensed your dimming chakra in the forests and we split up till we located you."

Sasuke nodded.

Suigetsu leaned back lazily on top of the stone wall and placed his hands behind his head. "Thought you'd yell at us if we didn't try and locate that Sakura girl so I instructed Jugo and Karin to spy and look after her, not that the latter was any more willing to go, mind you."

He rubbed a rather large bruise that Sasuke only now noticed on the shark man's upper arm. "That girl sure can punch."

Sasuke pursed his eyelids close, trying to gain his bearings and not at all caring about Karin's childish antics.

So many things must have happened while he was asleep.

"How long was I out?" he asked suddenly.

Suigetsu counted the days on his fingers for a moment. "Three and a half weeks."

Damn.

"How's Sakura been this whole time?"

"She's been just dandy."

Sasuke's threatening glare caused Suigetsu to smirk again. "Truth be told, she's starting to look like a vegetable."

The slight, horrified astonishment in Sasuke's eyes caused Suigetsu to laugh. "Oh relax, she's fine. Just lonely all the time."

"If I didn't know better, I would say she was missing someone."

Sasuke tsked, as if he didn't care. But somewhere, deep in the pit of his cold black heart, he felt…happiness, something he so rarely felt anymore since his brother died.

But he refused to show any of it.

Sasuke stood up from the cave floor and checked his own vitals, fisting his hands in front of him a few times. Yes, all of his chakra was back now. The three weeks he'd spent unconscious had at least been worth it.

Without turning around, he intoned emotionlessly to Suigestu: "Take me to where Jugo and Karin are."

* * *

They had indeed been keeping information from her.

Sakura realized this when, during one of her visits, Ino accidentally dropped, from within her pocket, a black armband.

Before the blond could pick it up Sakura had gotten to it first. The pinkette turned away so that Ino couldn't snatch it back before she'd managed to observe it. The thing was ornately stitched and obviously not made by her best friend (for Ino could hardly thread a needle). The thing was entirely made of rich silk cloth, the kind not easily attained unless with lots of money, or…issued away.

Sakura recalled Sai, from ANBU ops, wore patches made from this same kind of fabric. They were used to help identify him to other ANBUs. But his had been red and green, signifying he was from Konoha of the Land of Fire. Every village ANBU had a different type of color pattern, matching their name…but none of them were ever black.

Black was for mourning.

But what really sealed the deal and told Sakura that everyone who had visited her had been lying to her, was the small sewn in pocket on the very front of the armband.

It was filled with sand.

"Gaara," she intoned as she identified the symbol on top of the armband as being that of Sunagakure-

-right before Ino snatched it back.

But by then it had been too late.

And Sakura knew far too well what everyone was trying to keep from her.

"Gaara's dead, isn't he?" she asked without looking at Ino.

The blond, so drowned with guilt for keeping the truth from her, remained silent. Sakura ran up to the girl and shook her by her upper arms. "Gaara's dead, isn't he!"

Ino would not reply.

Before the blond could react, Sakura had ran down the steps of her room to the kitchen, immediately greeted with the sight of three Chunin stationed at the dining table. Among them, were Choji and Tenten.

"Sakura, what's wrong?" the latter asked when she caught sight of the frantic look on her face.

"Gaara's dead, ISN'T HE?" she asked frantically. Tenten bit her lip. Choji looked astonished.

In that moment, Ino ran down the steps as well.

"Sakura, please, calm down." She gripped her best friend by the shoulders. "You have to-"

"I don't have to do anything for you guys!" the pinkette shouted furiously while throwing her off. "You think keeping the truth from me will hurt me any less when I figure things out?"

Tenten tried to hold her this time, but still only got pushed away. "Sakura…you're extremely taxed already, by everything…that has happened. How could we tell you about Sasuke-"

"STOP!" Ino cut off while clamping her hand over Tenten's mouth.

Sakura had always gotten high marks on tests and been regarded as highly intelligent. But she didn't need any of that to put things together here.

"Sasuke…killed Gaara?" she looked to each of their expressions and their silent demeanor was all she needed for answer.

* * *

Sakura fell ill after that day; she either spent her time awake and crying, or asleep and feverish, the latter half more so. It was like her body just wanted to block out the world around her.

Tsunade took time off to personally come and take care of her protégé.

Her heart leapt out towards the pink haired girl that had to experience so much misfortune in her life, all at once. She could tell that Sakura loved Sasuke, and not even taking into account the entire year of torture that had transpired between them (for Tsunade had seen the scars and vaginal bruising on Sakura when she first came in)...but just to have to learn that the man she loved had killed one of her oldest friends growing up…

Tsunade caressed the side of Sakura's cheek, as she slept peacefully on her childhood bed.

What pained the Hokage most was that, she knew, Gaara's death wasn't even the worst news she'd yet to learn about…

A single tear leaked from Tsunade's eye to land right on top of Sakura's hand. The Hokage wiped it away¸ before placing a gentle kiss on top of the girl's forehead.

The truth was, she had a meeting to attend to, this very night, that addressed another forthcoming bad news for Sakura.

One that Tsunade hoped she could erase, before it beget.

* * *

The Kage Council was no new tradition.

It had taken place ever since the birth of all Five Villages and only met whenever times of crisis came about or seemed to be coming.

Like now.

The topic at hand was a hard one, unlike the last time they met, and the decision making process pitted village against village.

"You cannot do this!" Tsunade shouted while punching her fist straight across the pristine wooden table. Immediately a large gash came about where her beautiful albeit terrifyingly strong hand had landed. The fist had created a crater about the size of three melons.

Tsunade was usually able to keep her cool during meetings with other village leaders, choosing to voice her opinion only at strategic and advantageous moments-

-but today was understandably different.

And the Hokage voiced her vote immediately. "I vote no."

Ohnoki, the still current Tsuchikage, an elderly short man that was about as stubborn as he was old, scoffed. "You are only one vote, do not forget that Hokage."

The busty blond woman glared at the man, right before he stated. "I vote yes. This farce has gone on long enough."

Sitting opposite of Tsunade and Ohnoki were the remaining council: Mei Terumi, the present and Fifth Mizukage, and the two newest additions to their council: the new Raikage, Stenna Veal and the new Kazekage, Jace Bor. Respectively, they were a stout chubby woman in her late fifties with hard pressed worry lines down her face and a young thin looking man with extremely pasty looking skin but gentle blue eyes.

Mei Terumi, a sensuous woman with sharp keep eyes, kept her arms folded across her busty chest and her pretty mouth closed for now as she let the newest ones speak.

When given the spotlight, the female Raikage immediately stood up, her pudgy weight slightly stopping her from standing up properly and causing her chair to stutter a bit as it slid off of her fat posterior. The guards behind and around her had to hide hair their snuffling chuckles, even though Stenna still heard them. She completely disregarded them, having gotten used to jeers at her weight, for most of her life by now.

Stenna was a woman of perseverance and maturity. She'd overcome all her cruel adolescent years from her peers to rise up in the ranks of Kumogakure. She had been in the running for Raikage with A, during the Fourth's election, but lost mainly because of prejudgment from others due to her obese weight.

It was despicable but it was reality. And Stenna was a pragmatic strong woman that didn't let falls set her back, so she ran again upon A's death, and sure enough she was elected. Now, she made sure that all her decisions were for the best of Kumogakure.

Even at the expense of a little pink haired girl.

"I vote yes. As much as it pains me to do so," Stenna voiced with a deep thick Kumo accept that immediately called everyone's attention in the room to her. She locked eyes with Tsunade's quaking ones. "I am sorry, but for Kumo and really all of the village's sake, this is the best option. They cannot risk having another Kage murdered."

Tsunade's jaw locked as a sweat bead perspired down her cheek. Two to one.

Jace Bor, Gaara's replacement, voted exactly as Tsunade expected and feared.

The man was renowned for having a dodgy political career in which he had allegedly assassinated all of his competition, leaving only a weak willed competitor that was easily defeated. Another thing he had going for him were his deep blue eyes that often transfixed people into going his way.

While he was manipulative, he was also wise though. Everything he did, like all the Kages, was for his village.

And so his decision followed exactly like Stenna's.

Because the decision was now unanimous with majority of three voting "Yes," the remaining Kage's vote was completely irrelevant. Mei Terumi stood up though, nonetheless.

"What makes you think this is the best course of action?" she asked, addressing everyone at the table. "What makes you think this will stop Sasuke? If history has taught us anything, provoking an Uchiha is extremely dangerous-"

"He KILLED two Kages," Jace exclaimed vehemently. "Injured countless Shinobi and ANBU ops, all because of this one girl."

The thin Kazekage stood up now too. "And who's to say he's even done yet, eh? Suppose we do let this Sakura Haruno go, who's to say this sick man won't try to possess her again at the expense of another innocent bystander?"

"So you would condemn the life of an innocent child, as well?" Tsunade intercepted quick.

"She technically doesn't even have a life, now does she?" Ohnoki asked with a sneer.

"For the lives of countless others, yes." Jace's response came too quick and Tsunade knew that he hadn't even thought about it. Hadn't even thought about killing a girl that had done nothing wrong.


	10. Chapter 10

**Note: Flashbacks, unless specifically noted, don't necessarily appear in chronological order.**

* * *

The fourth week of her stay in Konoha was a strange one.

Suddenly, the friends that daily came to visit her stopped and she was left to her own devices. Sakura was still confined to her room because her house was still guarded (except now all the Jonin and Chunin were people she had never met before and far stricter looking than any of the older ones too).

So Sakura kept to herself.

And the days grew far lonelier than she'd ever imagined them to be.

With no one to distract her, all of her thoughts now turned to Sasuke. How he used to hold her, how he used to kiss her, how he used to…

…command her to say she loved him.

The memories were the only thing to keep her company and Sakura found herself drowning in them.

Every last one of them.

_"Where are you taking me?" Sakura shouted as he dragged her with his iron grip of one hand, over both of her tiny wrists. "LET ME GO!"_

_She wanted to scream for help but she doubted it would actually do anything effective except anger her captor even more. They were in a completely empty area, save for the two of them, right now, and at that, nighttime so even if there was anyone close enough to hear, they were most likely asleep._

_Which was probably why Sasuke had brought her here._

_Wherever here was._

_They were traversing on a dirt road that was obviously used on a daily basis for no clumps of grass grew anywhere on the path and at that the footprints were still distinct on the sand._

_Sasuke completely ignored her struggles as he continued pulling her forward._

_She looked ahead, eyes adjusting to the dim light, and saw a huge wide complexly designed bridge that they were obviously heading towards. When they were right beneath the sign of the bridge, they stopped. Sasuke looked up and Sakura followed his gaze, stopping her struggle momentarily out of curiosity to see what he was observing._

_The kanji sign said one thing: The Great Naruto Bridge_

Naruto? Why was this thing named after her best friend?

_Sakura gasped. Sasuke turned to stare at her, for a long tense moment._

_And then his dark eyes tightened in fury. He threw her violently and ferociously, past the open ornate gate._

_Sakura stumbled from his great strength onto the bridge, running initially to try and keep herself balance but eventually her leg muscles wore down in soreness at the relentless movement and she fell, flat onto her front. Sakura scraped her elbows during the impact but she still fought to get back onto her feet. _

She had to get away. She had to get away.

_But her movements were too slow and Sakura felt a strong arm falling down onto her shoulder from behind. It whirled her back around to face Sasuke, who still had that furious gaze inside his irises._

_Sakura gasped for breath, as if she was underwater, that was how frightened she was. Her green eyes trembled as their gazes met, pleading for him not to hurt her anymore._

_Sasuke gritted his teeth. "What do you know of this place?"_

_Sakura was obviously unnerved, torn between the truth and what to say to not infuriate him anymore than she already had. _

_"I-I," she turned to face every which way, quickly taking in her surroundings. "I-I don't…"_

_She bit her lip. "I've never been here before."_

_Sasuke suddenly jerked her completely against his body, seething hotly against her face: "Wrong. Answer."_

_And with that he came to suckle her neckline, simultaneously ripping open the front of her kimono like top that was essentially only kept closed by a sash at her waist. Sasuke pulled wide open her collar without undoing the sash so that a large portion of her breasts and entire neckline got bared to him._

_Sakura squealed in horror as his mouth came to kiss its way down the valley between her breasts, while his hands kept her secured against him by pressing against her back._

_"Please!" she cried desperately while trying to back out of his hold; her hands that had been trying to shove him away got taken again into his palms and pulled high above her head. Sasuke let her back the two of them up because eventually he had her cornered against the wooden railing._

_"No…" Sakura cried as he finally pulled off her white sash and then flung it high behind him, landing somewhere on the shadowed bridge. Sasuke next tried to do the same with her entire top, trying to take it off her and potentially just letting it fall off into the waters-_

_-but Sakura fought hard to keep it on her arms._

_And then the pinkette did something he didn't expect. She pressed her head into his chest that was revealed by his plunging v-neck shirt, sobbing straight into the firm muscular surface. "Please…I'm sorry…I take it back, I take everything back...just don't do anything to me."_

_Her entire being trembled in his hold as she continued to cry for an indefinite amount of time; Sasuke stopped moving in that moment, hardly even breathing._

_Then his hands came to rise up on her back -and for a second, she thought he was going to continue again- but his hands only came to rest on her shoulders, before forcing her away from him._

_Sakura sniffled as she came to look up at him. As soon as their eyes met again, Sasuke closed the distance between them once more, only it was to kiss her forehead._

_Sakura's eyes widened at this action._

_Her entire body stood frozen in shock, as her ears suddenly started burning._

She was blushing.

_"I'll give you one more chance," he whispered right up against her forehead. "Look into my eyes."_

_Sakura trembled again but consented; slowly, she raised her head. Red eyes._

_Instantly, the world around her melted away and she found herself…_

_…well on the bridge again, only it didn't look so much like a complete bridge anymore. It looked half built and had wooden beams strewn carelessly on the surface and-_

_She gasped as a shuriken suddenly came flying past her head._

_She ducked down right at the last minute and managed to avoid being skewered._

_Sakura looked ahead, towards where it had come from and saw that that particular area of the incomplete bridge was thickly fogged, unnaturally so._

_Something compelled her to walk forward. For some reason, Sasuke had just disappeared._

_Closer and closer she drew until Sakura saw that she was on the brim of a battlefield. Inside a slew of rotating what looked to be essentially mirrors floating in a dome shape hovered above ground, surrounding…what looked to be two young boys._

_Sakura drew closer._

_"Be careful of the Crystal Ice Jutsu! Haku can come out from anywhere!" a familiar male voice shouted from somewhere behind her; she turned and came to see Kakashi, standing in front of an old bearded man with a straw hat, clearly protecting him._

_But right as he said that a masked individual with two dangling hair braids suddenly shot out from the mirror and attacked-_

_-Sakura gasped. They were attacking Naruto!_

_It was his younger form and still dressed in that orange jumpsuit of his but definitely him._

_She immediately ran towards the rotating mirror dome. Sakura tried to get in but a force field over the dome's outside stopped her. She could only look in from the outside._

_And that's when she saw the other person next to Naruto. _

_The face was less distinct and had more baby fat but it was undeniably Sasuke, as a child. Or perhaps a preteen. He looked tall even back then, for his age. His clothes were torn and slit open from various attacks. The same could be said about Naruto's clothes._

_The two were obviously hurt and critically damaged._

_Suddenly the domed ice completely shattered and a flash of blinding light obscured Sakura's vision._

_When it faded, everything vanished around her. Kakashi, the straw hat man, even the bridge…was all gone._

_Except for Sasuke and Naruto, who both lied unconscious on the ground. Sakura moved, to run to their forms…but suddenly a third being ran into the scene, right through her body?_

_Sakura gasped at the sight she saw._

_It was her, or at least, the younger version of her. She still had that long river of hair down her back, kept back fashionably by her shinobi headband and she was wearing a red sported qi pao-_

_-as she ran to Sasuke's form._

_She came to cradle the boy's being in her embrace as she started to cry, clearly distraught over the his injuries. Sakura outright ignored Naruto, who was equally injured._

What in the world was she watching?

_"Sasuke! You...you have to be alright!" she called while tears streamed down her face._

_After a spending a significant amount of time checking on Sasuke's vitals, Sakura's younger form finally turned to look at Naruto._

_Sakura's real self moved, as if to go closer again -but a hand came to tighten around her upper arm, and jerked her around._

_Immediately, the white world shattered and she was back on that bridge. The completed bridge, with adult Sasuke._

_Her green eyes trembled and flashed her terrified confusion. "What just…"_

_"I'm giving you, one chance…" the man said with stern black eyes that stared right into her soul. "Say and do exactly what you just saw, to me, and I'll let everything go for tonight."_

_Sakura could only stare at him in astonished confusion, neither complying nor showing she objected. Sasuke's patience grew thin after a few more moments of inaction. A hand came to snatch the back of Sakura's hair, wrenching her head back at a painful angle to expose all of her throat to him._

_"Fine. Have it your way," he said before coming down to suck her throat._

_"Ah!" Sakura cried while trying to shove him away again but like always she was too weak. Her shirt was still without a sash and hung open at the sides on her front, exposing the side of her breasts to him (because he hadn't given her a bra to wear the last time she showered) and Sasuke easily took advantage of this. His hands rose up to painfully cup both of her breasts and knead the soft mounds with angry fervor._

_"St-st-stop!" she shouted desperately through panted breaths. His touches were blatantly intended to cause her pain instead of stimulation and Sakura could only wince at the sensations. "Pl-please! I'm sorry!"_

_But he wouldn't stop this time._

_The hand came back to tug on her hair, wrenching her to face him. "Say it."_

_A tear leaked from Sakura's eye, down her pale cheek but she complied, in a weak shaky voice: "Please Sasuke…you have to be…alright."_

_She stated through raking sobs that shook her body from head to toe. Sakura cried into Sasuke's hold again and her hands wrapped around him, because she didn't know how else to calm him. There was no way she could run away and Sakura just wanted to keep his hands away._

_"You…have to be alright…" she stated again, continuing to bawl into his hold. "…you have to…be…"_

Alright.

The memory faded and Sakura stood up from her bed, hugging herself as she walked to her window.

True to his word, Sasuke had indeed stopped his actions against her that night. She hadn't been able to understand why he'd been so driven to have her re-live those genjutsu events (which she now knew, after some research, had been summoned up by his Sharingan) but now she understood.

He'd been trying to remind her of her old life.

Her old memories, perhaps.

Which meant all the things she'd seen, thru him, had…actually occurred.

She'd really cried over Sasuke's wellbeing instead of Naruto's.

She'd favored him?

But then again, everything could have just been his fabrication. He could have made up the entire illusion just to fulfill some kind of sick fetish…

Sakura couldn't be certain.

Because nothing was certain right now.

* * *

Suigetsu sent the signal at the Ghems, a now abandoned village near the outskirts of Konoha. The signal was a firework like blitzkrieg that exploded into the night sky, in which looked like an old festive explosion to anyone except Taka members.

Sasuke had taught them that whenever they saw this signal, they were to immediately drop whatever assignment given to them and meet up, thirty meters North and twenty meters West of where the signal had originated; the instructions were obviously to evade anyone that had decided to follow the firelight anyway.

And so Sasuke and Suigetsu waited.

And sure enough, not even ten minutes later, a being in a black cloak shifted in their peripheral vision, leaping atop the high canopy tree tops, until they were right above them; they leaped down.

A girl with long dark magenta hair stood before them.

Karin.

It was _only _Karin.

"Where's Jugo?" Sasuke immediately asked, before the girl could emit her usual 'SASUKE!' squeal whenever she saw him. The kunoichi was visibly deflated at the Uchiha's lack of enthusiasm at seeing her, but she replied nonetheless:

"He's in Konoha still."

Sasuke's eyes narrowed. "I told you guys the instant you see the signal to drop whatever mission you're on."

Karin's chest huffed indignantly. "Well, if we weren't so sure that you would murder us on the spot if we _did _leave Sakura, then we would have complied!"

Suigetsu hadn't caught a word of that. "What?"

"What are you talking about?" the Uchiha intoned strictly.

The abrasive girl scoffed. "Seems like your old village has turned their backs on that little prize of yours; they're planning on undoing the reanimation jutsu to send her soul back to the dead."

Sasuke's fist tightened against his trousers as his teeth gritted.

"Where's Jugo now?" he seethed lowly.

"Keeping a bird's eye view on her, outside of her window. He's planning on springing her free before midnight today, since that's when the Konoha ops plan on taking her."

Sasuke's next words were almost anticipated.

"We have to move, fast."

* * *

Evening came around slowly for Sakura; this was officially the end of her fourth week in Konoha.

She sighed as she gazed out the window to her bedroom. The sun had set awhile ago but only now were the house lights on her street going down.

On the complete opposite side of the road, she saw the silhouette of a woman and a smaller form, clearly a child being dressed into their pajamas, before getting tucked into bed by said mother.

It made her miss her own mom.

_Where was the woman?_

_Where was her father?_

And how come they hadn't come back from sea by now? Ino had said that they'd already gotten news of her return and were on their way back.

But she'd said that three weeks ago.

So perhaps Ino had been lying back then.

And perhaps that was the real reason her friends had all stopped coming to see her, from fear that she would ask them about the truth of where her parents really were, and none of them wanted to be the one to break the news to her.

That they had died.

Sakura hated to confront this growing thought and suspicion but what else could she think? Everything added to this conclusion and she knew that if they were still alive, nothing could keep them away from her, no matter the distance.

And if Ino had lied to her about her parents that meant that Naruto too was…

No. No. NO.

She couldn't think like this.

If Sakura thought like this…she would lose her mind.

And she wouldn't let the world take that from her too.

Just then, right on her peripheral vision, she saw a shifting shadow right before her vision. Sakura knew what it was immediately: a shinobi moving at chakra speed.

The weeks she'd spent cooped up back in Konoha had at least let her regain a bit of her old Ninja Academy teachings. She'd had too much time and spent most of it reading her old textbooks.

Just as she opened her mouth to scream for help, Sakura felt a hand clamp down around her lips from behind.

"Don't speak," a warbled voice, that she couldn't tell if it was either female or male, spoke from behind her.

Turning with her best capability, restrained as she was, Sakura saw that her attacker was someone wearing all black, gender ambiguous, shinobi attire and face mask. Even their eyes had a one way visor over them so that Sakura couldn't see past it.

Sakura's scream was muffled by the individuals large palm and she tried in vain to pry it off with both hands. Finally, the individual intoned: "I'm here to help you, Sakura Haruno."

But she wasn't so easily convinced.

An elbow came crashing back behind into the being's body but it didn't seem to hurt her attacker too much. In fact, they barely phased, not even allowing Sakura a moment to break free.

Right in that moment, a series of heavy footsteps pounded on the floor below, then rushing up her staircase. Sure enough, a second later the door to Sakura's bedroom burst open, and in came at least a dozen masked ANBU shinobis that all had jonin level armbands. They were all dressed in battle ware and had their shinobi tools strapped plentifully across their entire personage.

Like they were about to go to war.

What was going on?

"I thought you guys had planned for midnight." Her attacker said stoically from behind her.

The leading masked ANBU was the one to answer: "That was the plan, until we sensed a foreign chakra coming in thru this household. Our sentries immediately sent word that someone was trying to break the Haruno girl out."

_Break. Her. Out._

Like a prison?

The masked man currently holding her from behind, suddenly turned around, looking thru the open window he'd come in from. Sakura heard him whisper, probably thinking to himself: "They couldn't have sensed my chakra…"

And all of a sudden, he leaned in to whisper into Sakura's ear: "Hold your breath."

A second later, he threw a smoke bomb onto the ground. Immediately, choking gray smoke obscured all of Sakura's vision and she'd barely had time to comprehend what he'd told her to do before enacting it.

Unable to see anything, Sakura felt herself being lifted into strong arms and then a second later, she found herself being carried out of her window. The clouded night's sky surrounded her, with no moon and stars so Sakura could hardly see what was going on around her. All she could hope was that the man currently holding her knew where he was going and wouldn't run into the bordering mountains of Konoha.

* * *

Sasuke got to the outside of Konoha and he immediately knew he'd arrived too late.

Every single barrier of the town had been initiated, clearly to prevent anyone from entering.

Or leaving.

"Karin, sense Jugo's chakra," he instructed quickly. Clearly, Sakura had already escaped with Jugo and the two were now on the run. Jugo was a strong Shinobi, able to even go against A's lightning attacks head first, but he was no match for all of Konoha's militia.

They had to get to the two of them, fast.

Their plan was meticulous: span the outside of Konoha's barrier, locating either Sakura or Jugo's chakra (or their actual person with Sasuke's sharingan). Once they found it, depending on where it was, they would blast a hole through the city's barrier defense and quickly rescue them.

Because Karin sensed there were _countless _other sensory ninja nearby, and Sasuke's team was currently trying to stay the stealth track, she had to keep her chakra as low as possible.

And as a result, it took longer for her to locate Jugo's chakra.

But eventually Karin felt it, a sliver of chakra, dimmed and clearly…

Wounded.

Sasuke sped up to the location Karin pointed out: a cave near the outside of Konoha, right before it touched the surrounding mountainside. They must have escaped in time before Konoha became completely quarantined.

Sasuke was the first to the cave's entrance. Not even needing to activate his sharingan, he saw Jugo's bloodied form hunched down the cave's wall.

He was alone.

"Jugo," Sasuke called quietly once he was right next to the bipolar man's form. He lightly shook the man's arm.

Either Sakura had been captured at the cave, causing Jugo's present injuries or she'd been taken during the escape and Jugo had just barely made it out before the barrier closed.

The orange haired man stirred and then his eyes fluttered open.

"Sasuke…wh…at-"

"Jugo, where is Sakura?" the Uchiha asked impatiently; Suigetsu and Karin had caught up to the cave's entrance by then.

"I-I don't know. Someone else rescued her before I could. They escaped out of her window with the ANBU chasing after them. I gave chase, to see if the masked person was one of us but…I got ca-caught-" He started coughing up a spasm of blood. "I…I just…barely made it…out…"

But by then Sasuke had stopped listening.

"Karin, heal Jugo," he commanded emotionlessly while standing up and walking away.

He came to stare out into the cold night's sky, his mind racing. If Jugo hadn't been the one to take Sakura, then who had?


	11. Chapter 11

Sakura was lowered onto a soft sandy surface that her mind barely registered. They'd been travelling long into the night and almost to morning. And since Sakura couldn't really argue against him, lest she wanted to go plummeting straight down the sky in which they travelled upon, she just fell silent.

After all, that's what she always did with Sasuke.

And soon, sleep came to fill her senses from every angle.

Despite not wanting to go to sleep around a foreign person (that had abducted her no less), Sakura couldn't help it. Her body felt too sluggish from having an entire night's sleep deprived away.

* * *

Karin stayed on the edge of their prison hideout. The place they'd retreated to once Jugo's condition had been stabilized enough for him to be carried over great distances. Karin wanted to say that Sasuke had went with them, to perhaps make sure that a valued member of his team Taka made it there safe and everything…but she couldn't.

Because he hadn't.

After giving them instruction to take Jugo back and place him in the healing chamber, the selfish Uchiha had left them _again._

This past year had already seen him spending hardly any time at all with his team and when Karin had confronted the bastard about it he'd just laughed at her.

_Laughed _at her.

Karin would have hated the man…if she didn't freaking love him so much!

Her nails dug so hard into her palm that blood actually started dripping down onto the stone floor beneath her.

What the hell made that Haruno girl so special? What in the world did Sasuke see in her?

WHAT THE HELL WAS HE STILL SEEING IN HER?

* * *

Sakura was woken up to the distinct smell of….flapjacks?

The fresh yeasty aroma pervaded her senses and Sakura's eyes peaked open. Sitting right next to her head, about five inches away on a white ceramic plate, was a high stack of pancakes with a dollop of yogurt drizzled over with honey. There was also a metal fork on the plate.

Sasuke.

Sakura blinked.

She didn't know why she'd just thought that.

Her head whipped up to take in the entrance of the cave she was presently in. A calm beach shoreline stood about forty feet in front of her; she could even see seagulls flying over the waves.

Where was she?

She could remember…last night, someone dressed completely in traditional shinobi black clothes had taken her from Konoha…allegedly for her own good. The village ops had talked about having some sort of plan for her at midnight…

The ANBUs that had come rushing in were even all Jonin level.

Why was that?

More than just Tsunade knew about her chakra paralysis and those people had definitely spread word about it to everyone else. So there wasn't really any need for all the high level ninjas, for whatever they had planned for her…

So then why…

Her thoughts were cut off when the only light that came from the entrance of the cave got cut off all of a sudden by a shadow that cast over her body.

Sakura looked up again; there stood the masked individual that had rescued, possibly kidnapped, her.

"Who are you?" she asked tremblingly.

The person ignored Sakura, even though they looked right at her, before they turned and walked past the entrance.

"Wait!" Sakura cried as she hurriedly ran out to follow.

In her haste, she almost slid on the fine sand but caught herself at the last minute. Sakura looked up and was shocked to see no sign of the black garbed figure anymore. Instead, her eyes came across a line of white clothes and clean towels pinned on a clothesline, drifting in the gentle wind, between two wooden poles stuck firmly into the ground.

Posted onto one of the poles was a note that gave directions to a nearby creek good enough for washing. At the base of that same pole were two soap blocks, wrapped in wax paper, piled on top of each other.

A campfire with a steel pike of finely roasted fish was also in front of her, obviously intended for her to eat.

She wasn't overly germophobic or anything but Sakura did like to bathe at least once every evening and she'd been unable to do so last night…

Sakura took another careful glance around herself; there really was no sight of the masked person (who very well could be a man)…but she knew Shinobi were trained to specifically not be detected when in hiding.

She pursed her lips.

Should she risk it?

Sakura decided to let time decide this one for her.

She first ate breakfast, alternating between the surprisingly well cooked flapjacks (that she'd retrieved from the cave) and the flame roasted trout. It wasn't phenomenal but still a good meal. When after she was full and there were still no signs of the masked person, Sakura decided that if they hadn't come back now they probably weren't going to.

She quickly pulled off the clean clothes and towels before setting off into the neighboring forest following the notes directions. Not even thirty feet into the thicket, she came across the aforementioned creek. Testing the waters, Sakura found it was lukewarm.

Quickly, she stripped down and slipped in.

* * *

Sakura let herself soak longer than she originally planned; the fresh pooling water was like a salve against her skin and just seemed to strip away all of the stress that had accumulated in her body since she'd arrived back in Konoha.

Was she still in the village?

Sakura had no idea as she stepped out and towel dried herself. Though she still spotted no one around her, not even woodland animals, she acted fast before throwing on the white clothes left to her.

They were loose robed garments made of layered white fabric: a top that had sleeves down over her hands and came to flow past her waist. She belted it with the white sash provided; whoever had given these to her must have known they would be too big. The pants were also loose fitting and she had to roll them up at the hems to keep from tripping on them.

Satisfied, Sakura stepped back to the campsite.

Again the scene before her had changed but still no living person appeared in front of her.

The wooden poles had been taken down and stuffed into a big green duffel bag that hadn't been there previously. Sakura rummaged through it and found a cache of standard shinobi tools and weapons. There was another note inside the bag that said one thing: _Use these to defend yourself, should you have to._

Sakura gulped; this note implied that people were after her.

Her thoughts were racing; yesterday the ANBU ops had talked like her captor had really been trying to rescue her from something they'd had planned at midnight. So…was her village really trying to hurt her?

…no, that couldn't be.

There…had to be another explanation.

* * *

Evening came around when Sakura realized that whoever was taking care of her had no plans of showing themselves.

Sometimes, when she turned around to stare into the open sea for a few minutes, Sakura swore she felt a shift in the wind, like someone moving at breakneck speed but as soon as she turned around, the shift was gone and no person stood in front of her.

It made her feel pathetic.

Here she was, being taken care of like a three year, and she couldn't even identify her benefactor. She was always being _taken cared of_. Be it Sasuke or this mysterious stranger, who didn't even deem her fit enough to talk to.

Why was she so helpless?

Sakura's head fell onto her knees as she started to cry, further proving her point. All she ever did now was cry and it _sickened _her_. _If it wasn't for the people around her, Sakura would have been dead a long time ago.

Her fists tightened in the sand around her as she continued bawling.

And what made it worst was that…she still missed Sasuke.

A great part of her wanted to be treated this way (_because it was so simple) _by him and him alone.

The independence she'd built up for most of her life was nearly all gone and just like her chakra, it didn't seem to be coming back anytime soon.

She just…wanted to be herself again.

She wanted people to respect her instead of make decisions for her, without ever telling her the explanations behind it.

* * *

Sakura spent an entire week like this. Three times a day food would be left for her on the campsite and though she'd tried on multiple times to never take her eyes away from the camp, she still had to blink and during that one second, the masked person would use it to appear and set down whatever was needed.

It wasn't always food either, sometimes whenever Sakura needed _anything _within the hour the object would drop by her feet. Sometimes the object would just appear and she wouldn't even see a shifting shadow.

Whoever the person was taking care of her, they had truly strong chakra.

Strong chakra that they used over her.

It sickened Sakura.

While she was grateful for their actions, she hated that after seven days the person still hadn't revealed themselves to her yet, and probably never intended to do so.

Did they think they were too good to meet with her face to face?

…but then again, the person could have their own reasons.

She'd most likely met the person in the past before otherwise they wouldn't be helping her out, tremendously like this. But what reason could they have for not wanting to meet with her now?

If they were deformed, they should have known that Sakura wouldn't hold it against them.

If they were a fugitive, Sakura still wouldn't have judged them for it, taking into account of the many days they'd been helping her.

So what other reason was there?

By the morning of the eighth day, Sakura was darn sick of this life. This time for morning breakfast, there was s steaming hot pot in front of her cave.

But once again there was no sign of where it had come from.

Sakura burst standing up. In fury, she kicked away the hot pot, spilling the contents onto the sand. Some dim part of her was angry at herself for wasting so much food but Sakura ignored it.

No, she couldn't be like this. She couldn't live like this. She wouldn't let herself be mollified like this…

In an instant, Sakura was running, from the campsite, in the first direction before her. She didn't care where she was going…she just had to go.

To run away from all this misery…and craziness that was possessing her…

Sakura made it halfway into the forest when the back of her outside sweater got caught on a thick tree branch. In her fervid tirade, she took this as another obstacle the world wanted to throw at her and Sakura furiously tore off her outer sweater so that she was only in her tank top, before taking off again.

Sakura ran deep into the thicket and foliage. Fallen branches and twigs snapped under her weight as she tore through. Everything. Everything.

She just had to get away from everything, even if it was for just a few moments.

Somewhere behind her again, she felt again that unnatural shifting of wind (only much faster now) as whoever the chakra movements belonged to, followed her.

Damn it.

She was still being watched.

This thought infuriated her.

There was absolutely nothing she could do to free herself!

As if to slap her in the face, right then: three ANBU masked shinobi wearing Iwagakure armbands suddenly appeared before her vision. Sakura's feet halted too abruptly and she couldn't help falling onto her back, upon the open clearing of the forest.

"Sakura Haruno! You are under arrest on order of the Five Kage Council," the central masked person stated; Sakura guessed them to be a guy by their voice.

"The Five…Kage?" Sakura reiterated in shock. So Tsunade was in on this too…

"What did I do?" she asked while getting up on both feet again. They stood about five feet away from her.

"For being an accessory to the Fourth Raikage and Fifth Kazekage's murder."

Sakura's jaw completely parted as the color completely drained from her face. "Wh-what did you just say?"

"Sasuke Uchiha murdered both men along with countless other shinobi and injured probably hundreds more all because of you. Right at this very instant he is on a rampage against the outlying villages of Konoha in his quest to find you. The Kages have all decided that this world cannot afford to have you live amongst us a second time."

"We will take you back to Konoha where all the Kages will gather to bind and undo your reanimation."

Sakura felt her head spinning again.

Several things happened all at once in the next second: just as all three ANBU lunged towards her, with Aichi Needles (sedated drug weapons) propped between their fingers to shoot at her, the strength in Sakura's legs collapsed.

But before any of the ANBU even got to her, that same masked person, clad in all black traditional shinobi robes, appeared in front of her. They had within both of their hands two broad flattened swords. The three were shocked at the sudden arrival but they didn't stop.

The Aichi Needles shot out towards the black garbed person but they easily knocked it out of the air before they came in contact.

Sakura watched in awe as the single masked person did battle with all three jonin level ANBU (she'd seen their armbands) and hardly had to put in any effort to stop them from getting close.

Quickly, her masked helper parried their attacks while backing them up in the process. It was obvious the blacked garbed person was holding back their power; there had been several kill shot openings that Sakura had seen exposed but each time the black garbed person merely ignored it.

The other reason she knew he was holding back: Sakura could tell, merely by their fast movements and the swiftness of their speed that they had a lot of chakra at their disposal but her masked fighter refused to use any of it. Both, she was sure, to not mortally harm any of the ANBUs but also to prevent their jutsu from being recognized.

Sakura must have met whoever this person was before.

Just as she thought that a hand came covering her mouth, from behind, muffling her one-second-delayed scream. Luckily, as she struggled, her hand broke a twig on the ground and a loud snap occurred thru the air.

The masked individual turned to look behind at Sakura; in that one second, one of the ANBUs jabbed a kunai knife straight into their abdomen.

The masked ninja whipped his head back around, while grunting from the extreme pain. For one-sixteenth of a second, they seemed to contemplate something, and then they did it: an invisible force suddenly exploded between him and the rest of the three ANBUs, knocking them away straight into tree trunks behind them. They fell limply onto the ground, unconscious.

The black masked individual turned back to Sakura and in a second, they had disengaged the person that had been smothering her.

Sakura fell limply onto her back as her eyes stayed locked on the black garbed man.

Right before they collapsed onto the ground next to her. Sakura gasped as her eyes finally caught sight of the kunai knife protruding from their abdomen, slicing right into their stomach.

"Oh, oh god," she called out while her hand tried to cup the wound that continued to gush out blood like a geyser. She was a medical-nin and so Sakura could tell the injury had pierced deep into an internal organ. If it wasn't stopped soon, this person would die.

In the drastic moment, Sakura didn't think to undo his mask right now, too worried about saving their life.

The person grunted as she examined the wound fully; the cut wasn't actually that big, just too deep; Sakura couldn't pull the knife out unless she had something to stopper the blood.

"H-hang on, I'll be right back," she stated while gently placing him straight down across the forest floor.

Koriko leaves, that's what she had to find. They were renowned for their healing and blood restorative properties because the plant actually contained fermented alcohol within the stems and could act as an emergency war tincture. The plant grew usually in forest areas so she was in luck; now she just had to find the base of an Orma Tree, for the Korikos always grew around their roots…

It took her longer than she expected, longer than she could stand- but eventually Sakura did locate the Orma and quickly dug around the thick barked roots. She cut her hands in the process but Sakura ignored the pain.

In a second, she found the blue leaves and quickly picked them all off. It wasn't a lot but enough to heal one person.

Just as Sakura stood up, pocketing the leaves into a zip pocket on her trousers, a hand came clamping down on her wrist, gripping it tight.

Her breath caught in her throat, as she turned her head, expecting to see Sasuke-

-only to see a man she'd never met before.

He had pale white hair down to his chin and shark like sharp teeth.

"Well, look at what I've found here? Sasuke will be so glad to finally get his pet back."

Sakura's breath caught in her throat. Sasuke. This man worked for Sasuke.

"Who are you?" she asked, terrified.

"Suigetsu," he intoned with a big wide smile, revealing ferocious teeth that Sakura could just imagine tearing apart any type of animal…or human. He had a broad sword that was longer than his entire height, strapped diagonally on his back.

Sakura was at first too shocked to think of what to say but then she dropped back down to reality, pleading with a shaky voice: "Please…you can't take me back to Sasuke."

For that was another thing that she'd decided upon during her week-long stay at the beach, without anyone to interact with; she had to let go of her love for the dangerous man, and his insane tendencies. At first, when she'd been torn from him, it was like she'd been facing withdrawal; withdrawal from being addicted to him for too long…but then the symptoms dimmed the longer she had to herself and Sakura finally realized how…unjust her relationship was with the man.

She'd only just managed to escape from the psychological prison the man had imprinted upon her mind and Sakura would be damned if she let herself go back in. And she knew that was exactly what would happen if Sasuke ever found her again.

But Suigetsu didn't seem any bit sympathetic.

"No can do princess, if I let you go and something happens to you before Sasuke actually finds you again…" the man winced before running his index finger across his throat, emitting a slicing sound with his crooked teeth. "Hell, he'll kill me even if he just found out I'd let you go," Suigetsu stated while tightening his hold on her wrist.

Sakura winced at the grip but wouldn't give up: "N-no! I-I…I at least can't go right now. Give me ten minutes then I'll come back. Please! I have to go back to…to help some-"

She was cut off by Suigetsu's laugh. "Sorry girl, I'm not stupid enough to fall for that."

Sakura tried to pry free of his hold but the man merely started dragging her, outright, through the forest terrain. They were going in the wrong direction!

Sakura's head whipped around to stare into the distance, where past a long series of trees she knew was where the dying masked man was. He'd taken care of her for an entire week and now she couldn't even treat a wound of his?

Sakura acted before her mind registered the thought: she bit down on Suigetsu's hand.

"AH!" the man cried out, immediately letting go of Sakura who then tore off from him, down the direction she'd been careful to memorize by landmarks. At least her intellect hadn't dwindled any bit during this quagmire.

Unfortunately, the distance going back was still a long one and Sakura could hear Suigetsu's frantic footsteps furiously chasing her.

Halfway there, Sakura's foot slid on the ground and she fell down the sloped decline of the forest.

"AH!" the pinkette screamed as her body tumbled down the spiky declivity. Her face, arms, legs and torso got sliced open in numerous small cuts by the countless sharp rocks and branches. By the time Sakura had made it to the bottom, her entire body was searing and all common sense told her to just stay down but the pink haired kunoichi stood up again.

And continued to run.

She couldn't stop.

"Oh come on!" Suigetsu cried out from behind her. "Sasuke's going to have my head if he finds you like this."

But Sakura ignored him, continuing to hurry. Something dripped down her shin and she vaguely realized without looking that her knee must have been sliced open during the fall.

Yet her body barely registered any of the pain, probably because of the adrenaline coursing thru her veins right then.

Either Suigetsu was amazed at her continued speed despite all her nasty injuries, or he really was worried that she would now get away from him –for a sudden light ball shot up into the sky, exploding into a work of colored fire.

Sakura felt her breath tighten again.

He had called for backup, which meant it was only a matter of time until Sasuke got here, and found her.

Sakura gulped, putting all of her strength into each step now. By the land markings, she knew there was only a quarter of the distance left. Almost there. Almost-

Suddenly a group of ANBU ops, this one carrying the armbands from Suna materialized in front of her.

What else could go wrong today?

She had to stop, lest she wanted to run right into them. A few seconds later, Suigetsu's arms came wrapping around her neck and midsection, trapping her.

The ANBU were obviously shocked to see the shark-like man, but not in the least bit intimidated.

"You will hand over Sakura Haruno to us, unless you want to be listed an international criminal against all five villages," one of the masked shinobi stated, immediately causing the shark man to chortle.

"I'm already one such criminal. Say hello to Suigetsu Hozuki," the man stated with a cocky grin.

Some of the ANBUs visibly stiffened but it was only those at the back. Those at the front, with the jonin armbands merely stayed where they were, answering: "Then you are hereby under arrest as well."

Before Sakura could register anything, the man that had spoken came rushing up right towards her with their sword propped-

-Suigetsu blocked the attack while still managing to detain Sakura, with only one arm now around her waist.

The pinkette wanted to flail but she was afraid that with all swords being so close to her right now, her head might just get sliced off. But Sakura knew she still had to hurry; Sasuke could come at any moment now.

As soon as the ANBU retracted their sword, five other ANBUs came in to ambush Suigetsu.

"Damn it!" the man swore as he tried his best to parry every blow given to him. Eventually, one did make it through his defense and a sharp cut appeared beneath his shin. "Aghh!"

The man screamed as he finally let go of Sakura; protecting her was only burdening him.

The pinkette used that moment to burst off of him. Suddenly, she remembered the various tools the masked man had given her to defend herself with.

She'd pocketed some of them and so she reached into her pouch to grab a small rounded ball-

-suddenly a person's hand came clutching around her ankle, pulling her down to the frenzied battlefield. Her grip on the smoke ball fell and it hit the ground too fast.

Immediately, choking smoke came pillowing in through the battleground, causing countless Shinobi's to start coughing. Sakura, who had held her breath at just the last second, managed to save her lungs and used the confusion of the moment to crawl out from the fray.

Once she was out, Sakura took off running again.

Within minutes, she came upon the sight of where the first three ANBUs had appeared and the still body of her black robed rescuer lied on the ground.

Oh god. Had she taken too long?

Sakura ran to their form and to her surprise, they were still breathing, though very faintly. Keeping the kunai in must have acted as a stopper anyway.

Hurrying, she stuffed the Koriko leaves into her mouth to chew on them roughly, releasing the juices. As she did that (staying careful not to swallow any of the nutrients) she ripped off strips of cloth from her outfit for makeshift bandages. When that was done, she regurgitated the gross slew back out onto her palm, trying to let the least amount of juices drip to the ground. Her other hand closed around the kunai knife and without hesitation, she ripped it out.

Immediately a short gush of blood came out and Sakura cried as she pressed the wet mess of foliage onto the wound, before carefully wrapping the strips around his stomach, in three layers.

She'd done this many times in the Fourth Shinobi War, but never on someone that she was indebted to for saving her life and so her hands couldn't help trembling as they stayed pressing over the wound with all her strength. If this person died, because of her…Sakura wasn't sure she could live with herself.

And that's when she finally realized that she still didn't know of their identity.

Sakura bit her lip as she gazed longingly into the visored ninja mask they wore; should she do it? It was obviously wrong to take advantage of someone while they were weakened like this.

…but if she missed this chance then she might never have another one again.

The person was obviously much stronger than herself and if they didn't want her to know their identity, Sakura wouldn't be able to make them tell her. Not that she wanted to force anyone to do anything, even if she actually had the power. That wasn't what she meant…

Sakura blinked, knowing she was thinking too much into this.

It was just a peek. What harm could it do for her to see this person's face? If things really called for it, Sakura could just pretend like she still didn't know.

That's how she justified herself as her hands extended of their own accord to right above the person's mask; it gripped the top of the mask tight and…

She couldn't do it.

This person had saved her life, on more than one occasion and she couldn't bring herself to violate their privacy if they didn't want her to. Ugh. Sakura hated how annoying her conscience was.

Just then, she felt that strong shifting of wind behind her again. Someone had appeared behind her, through chakra. Only this time, she knew exactly who the chakra belonged to.

For she had felt it for far too long, for an entire year.

"Sasuke," she said the name without having to turn around to know that he stood right behind her.

* * *

Sakura stood up and turned to come face to face with the man that had raped and imprisoned her for over an entire year.

Some part of her wondered as to which awaited fate was worse for her: the punishment he would give her for running away for more than a month from him, or the things he would do to her after the punishment, once he'd had her locked up again inside that steel box.

Sasuke did nothing but stare at her for a long time, as if finding it hard to comprehend that she was really before him once again. Finally, his hand reached up towards her cheek-

-Sakura instinctively flinched.

A flash of hurt came over Sasuke's beautiful features but it disappeared just as fast. Instead of fury, Sakura was surprised to find him question her, in an emotionless tone: "How did you get all these injuries?"

Sakura pressed her lips together, not wanting to say that it was because Suigetsu had been chasing her. Despite the shark man's cruelty, Sakura didn't want him to face Sasuke's malevolence. "I tripped and fell."

"You're lying."

Sakura sucked in sharply, ready for a slap to her cheek. She'd forgotten somewhat of how well the man could see through her duplicity.

But surprisingly, the slap didn't come.

Sasuke only continued staring at Sakura and the pink hair kunoichi found herself on the verge of a nervous breakdown. This anticipation of him hurting her was too much and it gave her the worst kind of anxiety.

And what made it worse was…her heart was again beating sporadically from being so close to him again.

Anxiety and elation.

That was what he always caused within her.

The conflicting emotions caused tears to well up inside Sakura's eyes and soon she started crying –as soon as the first tear streamed down her face, the girl felt arms wrap around her, drawing her into a tight embrace.

To her surprise, Sakura felt Sasuke's face burying itself into her hair. He inhaled sharply. "God, you're still so intoxicating."

Sakura felt her face pluming again because of their proximity, even if they'd been in far more intimate positions in the past before.

And just then rushing out of the forest came the team Taka members: Karin, Jugo and a semi injured Suigetsu.

As soon as they appeared, Sasuke let go of Sakura and pushed her lightly away.

But in that moment, the Haruno girl didn't care. For her eyes took in the sight before her. Everyone except Sasuke, had blood splatters over their clothes, but somehow she knew they all had taken part in the fights that had drawn the blood. Sasuke had just been able to avoid getting any of it on him.

Sakura gasped as her eyes widened in horror. She waited for injured ANBU ops to come following out, preparing to finish the battle.

But no one did.

The battle had already finished.

Suigetsu might have had problems with the ANBU jonins but once Sasuke had joined in, the victory side was pretty much decided upon.

Sakura's trembling lime green eyes flashed her worry and Suigetsu smiled purposely grim as she took in his bloody outfit. "Men at our finest, girl."

Sakura squealed and instinctively drew back. With this action, she also drew distance between Sasuke and her. Immediately, the Uchiha stepped forward, extending his hand out for her to take. "Come Sakura, you're going back with me."

The pinkette stared at his lithe slender white hand for a long moment.

Oh god.

Oh god.

She…she couldn't.

She couldn't willingly choose to go back to his obsession. To that pain.

Sakura shook her head.

Sasuke took a menacing step forward. "Excuse me?"

The pinkette backed up as fear over took her senses and suddenly a shuriken came whizzing through the air, only it didn't hit her because it'd been aimed at Sasuke.

The Uchiha evaded it at the last second and only managed to get a cut on his right cheekbone, as he (and everyone else) came to stare at the origin of where the shuriken had originated.

And that's when Sakura realized, the masked man she'd healed should have been right where she was standing right now but there was nothing but grass where she stood.

Mainly because the masked body she'd healed was now standing thirty feet in front of her, slightly hunched from still having the fresh knife wound in their stomach...only they were no longer masked.

And Sakura, as well as everyone else, could see exactly who it was that had rescued her from Konoha.

"Gaara," Sasuke spoke the name furiously as he took in the appearance of the red haired sand demon.

"Gaara!" Sakura shouted a second later, in astonished elation as she smiled in genuine happiness at seeing the man still alive.

The Uchiha whipped his head around to glare at her for the excitement she had.

The Fifth Kazekage, still dressed in that all encompassing black skin tight robe except for the face mask now, was still wounded and so his breaths came in labored pants. One of his hands clutched at the bandaged wound on his abdomen and Sasuke's lips rose up into a smirk at the sight of his injury.

"Dying by my hands wasn't enough for you the first time?" the Uchiha taunted but the Fifth Kazekage stayed silent.

All he did was raise his hand and suddenly, the Sakura behind Sasuke melted into a pool of sand in the grass.

Sasuke's eyes widened. That had been a sand clone. He looked up again towards Gaara and sure enough, coming up tentatively from behind the man was the real Sakura. When in the world had the Kazekage made the switch?

The pinkette stayed close to Gaara not because she cared for him necessarily more than a friend but because she felt safer. Of course, this only made to infuriate Sasuke further.

The Uchiha growled in fury. "I killed you once, I'll kill you again."

Gaara remained passive and emotionless, clearly not intimidated.

Sakura looked frantically around her from side to side; her heart had soared at the sight of Sasuke but her mind told her to run as far as she could get from here, right now, while she still had the chance. She had to get away from him, lest she got addicted again.

Gaara could read her distress; his eyes flickered back to Sasuke, then once more to Sakura then to Sasuke again.

"I swear to god, if you don't hand her over to me right now."

The Uchiha clearly had one and only one weakness: this girl. The Fifth Kazekage had never seen the man lose his calm collected demeanor except for when things that concerned Itachi…and Sakura. Since the prior was already dead…

Sakura wasn't sure what was happening when she was suddenly jerked around by her upper arm and she felt soft lips against her own. Gaara's lips.

She was kissing Gaara.

Or rather, he had kissed her.

Sakura's eyes widened in the act and tried to pull away but hands rose up to lock her head against his. She saw that Gaara's eyes were closed, as if he was…actually savoring the kiss?

In a second, Sakura saw Sasuke charging right towards them, with his Kusanagi raised; the blade was flashing violently, charged with his chidori lightning chakra to behead both of them.

Right before he came into contact with them, sand suddenly came popping up like a geyser on all sides of the Uchiha, right through the grassy terrain. It encased him in the time of half a second. At the same time, a six pointed trigram, with kanji written around the perimeter, appeared beneath the man. It glowed with clear infusion of chakra and Karin emitted a scream of horror from behind Suigetsu.

The girl tried to move to help Sasuke but Jugo and Suigetsu stopped her, lest she get trapped in the curse jutsu too.

In another second, the sand that had drowned Sasuke took the shape of a perfect cube. Sakura watched as Gaara did a series of hand signs: horse, boar, ram, serpent…then the actions grew too fast for her eyes to follow. As he did this, a huge sword suddenly came charging at both of them, with Suigetsu intending to stop him from completing the seal but his thick blade merely met against an invisible force field over both Gaara and Sakura.

Finally, the Fifth Kazekage was done and he slapped his palm straight onto the Earth, shouting at the same time: "Ultimate Sand Sealing Jutsu!"

Immediately, bright light encompassed all of Sakura's vision and she had to block it out with both hands in front of her eyes.

In a few seconds, the light dissipated and there stood Sasuke Uchiha, encased not in sand but in a cube of glass.

The Taka members were nowhere in sight.


	12. Chapter 12

**NOTE: ENDING OF CHAPTER HAS CHANGED  
**

* * *

As soon as the Taka members vanished and Sasuke was completely imprisoned…

Gaara collapsed.

His body slumped to the ground -as soon as it did that, a second burst of blinding light burst from Sasuke's prison and a moment later there stood the Uchiha, sprawled face down on the ground, no longer encased but still unconscious.

Sakura's eyes widened in horror as she took in the sight of both injured men, lying by her feet.

Her mind was torn between who to help first.

Finally, she knelt down next to the Uchiha. Careful and _fearful_, she checked his vitals; thank god he was still alive. Though, the pulse line felt weird and unnaturally slow…

Sakura got up to check on the Gaara's form next. He also, thank the heavens, was still alive. His pulse line while more sporadic -actually sounded better to Sakura, for she at least knew how to treat it.

The pinkette stood up and made to stand but a sudden shifting of chakras behind her, made her stop. She could tell they were still in the forest area but within extreme proximity.

She had to hurry.

Summoning up strength, above her injuries, she managed to drag both Gaara and Sasuke (one at a time) behind a nearby bush before jumping behind the area and hunching down too.

As soon as she did that, a group of ANBU ops that Sakura couldn't see the armbands of, came into the clearing where they just were.

"Sense them," the leading ANBU instructed towards his close by colleague and Sakura immediately felt relief flood through her body; she had no outward chakra right now and as a medical-nin, she knew the unconscious people had barely any either.

Sakura waited and sure enough the sensory ninja shook their head, before the ANBU leader growled in frustration. Then the group left.

The pink haired kunoichi knew she was lucky. If she had gotten caught, then they would have undoubtedly catch Sasuke, arrest him, then most likely execute him, and she didn't want-

Wait, no she DID want Sasuke to get…

Sakura sighed and bit lip, before her eyes cast down towards the sleeping Uchiha. No, no she didn't. As much as she was conflicted about her feelings towards the man she didn't want to see him get turned over towards people that would surely kill him. She didn't want to see him get hurt.

The first thing Sakura did, once she'd made sure no more ANBU ops were going to come out and ambush her, was go back to the beach campsite and move everything into the shrouded forest. The trees gave far more coverage and she couldn't afford to stay in an open area like that anymore.

She chose a small tiny clear area between three trees; there was barely any room for all three of them: once she'd placed Gaara and Sasuke flat on their backs, Sakura was left with just a small corner, only enough room to sit with her knees drawn up to her chin. It was uncomfortable but she could make do with it.

It was about time she started taking care of someone else.

Once those things were done, Sakura searched both Sasuke and Gaara's persons. She did this for two reasons: one, she wanted to know if any of them had anything else that could help her protect the camp better; two, she wanted to prepare herself for when either of them woke up, in case, one of them carried something dangerous (even if it was unintentional, in Gaara's case).

She took out everything on both men's bodies (that she'd searched with blushing cheeks and tentative hands, even with Sasuke) and laid out everything on top of their slowly rising/falling chests.

Neither of them had much on them. For Gaara, she found a leather skinned canteen; a gold medallion that had red string dangling on all edges, Suna's emblem smelted into it on one side and then Gaara's surname on the back in Kanji; a bottle of medicinal powder for treatment of all flesh wounds along with a thick roll of unused gauze, which Sakura was very happy to find; and a red bound book, which she decided to examine later.

On Sasuke: there was also a canteen, this one slightly bigger and made of thick plastic and rubber; a strange crystal ball that didn't seem any bit special at first but when Sakura touched it –she actually felt warmth; a long slender bottle of iodine, that she was also happy to find; and four flare rockets, each one the size of her pinky finger.

Taking the two canteens, Sakura went to the creek to fill them up and then dropped in a Teek leaf (that she'd picked up on the way to the creek) into each one to purify them. The iodine could purify the water too of bacteria but Sakura didn't want to use the small amount she had; it was far more efficient in treating physical wounds, if needed.

She also looked for more Koriko leaves, for the second bandage change she had to do for Gaara. To her amazement and fortune, Sakura found a huge stash of them beneath a thick dead Orma tree. There was way more than enough to last Gaara thru all his changes but Sakura took all of it still, just in case someone else came into another critical wound.

On her way back, she also dug up a round of edible tubers and shrooms for dinner. It wouldn't be the most filling meal but Sakura knew these were incredibly nutritious. She'd dug up enough for three people, even though part of her hoped that Sasuke wouldn't wake up before Gaara did.

Satisfied with all she'd accomplished, Sakura trekked back to the campsite.

Once she got back, the pinkette shyly undid the now soiled bandages around Gaara's stomach before inching his moist black tunic up to his ribcage. Sakura normally wouldn't have any issues with seeing a patient of hers like this, she was a professional after all –but just because she'd now officially kissed the Kazekage, she found her face pluming red.

Sakura ignored it however and continued working. She cleansed it first with some water then a few drops of iodine over the wound that now looked much better than before, before packing onto it another round of regurgitated Koriko leaves. Sakura re-bandaged it with the roll of gauze she'd found on him.

By the time she was done the sun was already low and orange by then. Visibility decreased significantly around Sakura and she shivered when she heard several owls hooting above her. Her breathing caught in her chest and Sakura (in a shameless pathetic way) kind of wished one of the men around her was awake right now just to protect her.

In the end, Sakura made up her mind by just settling in between both of them.

* * *

When morning came around, neither of the men had yet to wake up and Sakura was starting to worry.

Her hands fell to Gaara's forehead and then Sasuke's, checking each of their temperatures respectively. Neither of them were feverish but…sleeping this much wasn't regular.

Her mind traversed all the medical books she'd ever read about excess sleep symptoms for shinobis…they were usually the result of…chakra overuse. If she was still a medical-nin, Sakura could apply a multitude of medicinal chakra procedures to try and awake them but now, as she stood by herself, the pinkette had nothing on her.

Literally, all she could do was wait.

As she sat, on her legs, kneeling between both men, Sakura suddenly felt a painful hunger inside her abdomen. It was only then did she realize that she hadn't eaten any of the food she'd gathered last night.

The kunoichi couldn't risk lighting a fire; the smoke would easily attract people to their location, so she just ate the tubers raw. They had an Earthy grit like taste, like uncooked potatoes but Sakura stomached it.

It was only after a few bites did Sakura lose her appetite again, mainly from worry about the two men. If she was already hungry, how long could they last without sustenance? The pinkette knew this answer from her medical textbooks: for a trained athletic ninja, less than 3 days before muscular atrophy. Then their body would start cannibalizing itself.

Before the third day, she had to get them awake, somehow. Sakura decided on this as she tilted Gaara's head up so that she could slowly tip some water from the canteen into his mouth. She made sure the angle was high enough so that it would miss all his nasal canals and go straight to his stomach. When he'd drank enough, Sakura leaned his head back down to the ground, satisfied.

She moved to the Uchiha and did the same thing for him. His head was slightly heavier than Gaara's so Sakura had to lean it against her knees (as she kneeled with them in front of her) to give herself the appropriate angle to tip the canteen.

As soon as her hand touched his face, Sasuke's palm shot up and immediately clenched around Sakura's.

The pinkette yelped and spilled the entire canteen in her shock that he'd awoken. A mix of emotions filled her in that second: elation, shock, fear, excitement…apprehension. But then Sakura saw that his eyes were still closed and Sasuke was speaking in his sleep: "Sakura…"

Even in his sleep…he dreamed about her? This thought sent a light butterfly feeling into the pinkette's chest. Before she knew it, Sakura was smiling.

Very gently, she tried to pry her hand free from his grip but Sasuke only hung on tighter. She moved so that she could sit beside him, as he lied flat on his back. The kunoichi leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on his forehead, whispering above it: "It's alright, Sasuke. It's okay."

But he still wouldn't let go. His grip continued to be tight as ever as he said: "You're mine…you need me. You love me."

The pinkette immediately flushed crimson here. Was it that obvious? She didn't even have to say anything, for him to know about her feelings?

Or…was he referring to her…past self?

She couldn't believe it hadn't occurred to her until now but the two of them…must have had something, before her memory loss, right?

Sakura just wished she could remember. Maybe she would finally understand why he'd raped her.

The memory still stood vivid inside her memories: the first time he'd forced himself on her. Usually he let her off, easily enough, if she started sobbing or pleading with him, agreeing to do anything if he would just stop but, that one day, he was completely adamant.

_The sky was unbearably cloudy, even though it was early morning. The wind ripped at Sakura's loose white robes as she was once again pulled by the Uchiha, this time through a green grassy meadow. It was obvious they were trekking through a cemetery. Broken stone grave markers were the only things unmoved by the torrid winds across the green plane._

_The more they walked the more Sakura became unnerved but she didn't dare resist Sasuke anymore, knowing very well that it only invoked his anger. By then she'd already lost use of her chakra points._

_Sasuke pulled her straight through the ominous land, never faltering once to stare at the creepy surroundings whereas Sakura felt her heart get colder and colder the deeper they delved. Subconsciously, she drew closer to Sasuke for comfort. The man, for once, didn't take notice or didn't care. Eventually, they reached an unmarked grave of gray slate. It stood erect in an ominous oval, the height of a toddler, stabbed straight into the solid ground._

_"Kneel." Sasuske suddenly ordered. Sakura reacted with confusion, sending him a questioning look._

_The man had no patience today._

_Sakura was forced to her knees by an iron hand on her shoulder. The cold hard Earth felt like an ice block stabbing into her flesh. Sasuke knelt down next to her._

_"Itachi…" the man spoke in a voice, barely louder than the howling winds. Sakura could barely hear him._

Itachi? Who in the world was that?

_"Forgive me…" she heard him say after a moment; for the time being, it seemed like he was ignoring her. Sakura wondered if she could…_

_As she took the moment to look around her surroundings, taking in every nook and cranny for a potential hiding place or escape route, Sakura didn't catch anything that Sasuke said to the tombstone._

_Finally, when she heard her own name, Sakura turned back to stare at the dark haired man again: "…finally found her…and I'm never letting her go again."_

_Sakura panicked at this statement. She couldn't help leaning away from the man as he turned to face her for the first time since they'd arrived in the cemetery._

_His eyes were unbearably cold._

Run. Run. Run.

No…she couldn't risk angering him…

_Those eyes were boring straight down onto her. For the first time, in a while now, Sakura wondered if he was going to kill her._

Run!

_Sakura for some reason couldn't will her feet to listen._

_Before she knew it, Sasuke had grabbed a hold of her by the back of her neck. It was obvious to Sakura, what he intended to do, as it had already happened many times before._

_In an instant their mouths were smashed together. His tongue ravaged her mouth with unending fury…or passion? Sakura couldn't tell. Instead of fighting him like she always did, Sakura immediately started backing out._

_The instant she did this Sasuke increased his ferocity tenfold. She was shoved straight onto the cold green plane, right above Itachi's grave, not that Sakura still had any idea who the person was._

_Sakura was pinned on her back as the freezing dirt dug straight into her skin, causing her to shiver. Her eyes caught sight of the torrent sky for one second before Sasuke came to cover her body completely. Dawn was turning to noon and the clouds had become even darker, obscuring most of the sun._

_Their color and shape told that it would rain soon, not that Sakura noticed because Sasuke's hands were once again wandering dangerously across her body._

_Sakura didn't cry this time, perhaps having grown slightly accustomed to his molestations and immediately skipped to what she knew would stop him: "Please Sasuke, I'm sorry…I-I didn't mean to offend you, whatever it was that I had done."_

_But this time the man ignored her, his hands had already undone the sash around her waist._

_Sakura bit her lower lip, then tried again more ardently this time: "Sasuke…if you want me to say something…anything. I'll do it!"_

_Still no reaction. One hand at her collar and another at her abdomen, Sasuke simultaneously tore open both her collar and leggings._

_Sakura finally screamed. She started fighting him tooth and nail but by then Sasuke was all but straddling her; he stayed completely on top her as he split apart her legs by jamming his knees in between them. Sakura screamed again and tried hitting him with her hands but he caught them easily enough._

_He went back to kissing her body, this time on her breasts. When his beautiful lips covered one of her nipples Sakura buckled, gasping in shock._

_In that moment, it started to rain._

_Beads of water dropped down on them in an unending sheet, quickly soaking both of them to the bone but Sasuke didn't get any bit deterred from his objective._

_Sakura cried loud when his hand came down low to grip the waist band of her pants, tugging on it hard. The water made it harder to undress her and Sakura used that to her advantage, desperate to get him to stop._

_"Please Sasuke! Don't do this!"_

_Never did Sakura picture her first time like this._

_As if that infuriated him more, the man came to grip her jawline and wrench her back kissing him. It was obvious he wanted to shut her up._

_Sakura screamed into the kiss when he finally pushed the waistband of both her leggings and underwear down-_

_A boom of lightning cracked through the air; it struck somewhere far from them, but the noise took them by surprise. Sakura took that moment of his lapsed judgment to try and break free, shoving him to the side and scrambling to her feet while pulling her clothes back up. _

_Sakura took off in the direction of the entrance but before she'd even made it past three feet from Itachi's grave, Sasuke teleported to right before her, blocking her path. Sakura backed up hurriedly, turning to go in another direction but she was jerked back by her elbow._

_Sasuke screamed in horror as her body fell into his; the moist clothes on his body caused her to be able to feel **everything **and it made her want to vomit._

_In an instant, he'd shoved her hard into the granite wall circling the cemetery and right behind Itachi's grave._

_He kept her limbs pinned as he once again grabbed a hold of her waistband and without warning shoved it down…_

_Her clothes got thrown in all different directions, slapping down heavily onto the sloppy Earth. Sakura's mind started going elsewhere, anywhere but on the cold hands touching her._

How had her life come to this?

What did she do to deserve this?

Was she not good enough as a child? Broken too many things for her parents to replace? Taken too many free samples at the grocery store? Gotten into too many fights with her family?

What _exactly _had culminated to her getting punished by this **monster?**

Sakura just wished she knew.

_Eventually he finished, panting as he stayed on top of her. Sakura's head was turned to the side, facing some dead moss behind the tombstone of Itachi, whose ever grave it was that Sasuke had just raped her on top of._

_Suddenly, she felt her tear streaked face wrenched by a hand on her chin, back to face Sasuke. She didn't glare, didn't glower, and didn't even scream at him. All she did was stare at him through lifeless green eyes._

* * *

_He shoved her through the shower door before stepping in himself and sliding the glass door shut, their muddied clothes quickly staining the clean porcelain. The capacity was large enough so that Sakura could stand at the far end and still have three feet of distance between them. The man didn't seem intent on keeping her close to him right now._

_Unfortunately, this was because he was currently focused on shucking himself of all his rain drenched clothes. Despite what had just occurred between them, Sakura turned around hurriedly when he made to remove his pants._

_She heard the heavy clothes plop onto the tiled floor outside and then she felt arms encircling around her from behind, grasping the ties of her shirt. He was trying to take it off again._

_"N-no, no…" Sakura cried while desperately fighting his hands._

_Sasuke's jaw locked in anger. "You'll catch hypothermia if you stay in these any longer."_

_Sakura only continued shaking her head. "No, please!"_

_When he succeeded in tearing open her tunic nonetheless and started reaching for her pants, Sakura summoned all her strength to turn around, hurriedly shouting: "I'll do it myself!"_

_Sasuke, to her surprise, seemed satisfied with this option, because he stopped his ministrations. _

_Sakura realized with a silent lament that it was probably because he'd already gotten what he wanted from her. She silently wiped her tears away as they started to flow again…_

_In an instant, she was whirled around again, facing Sasuke once more. "What's the delay? You wait any longer and I'll-"_

_"I'm getting to it!" Sakura shrieked out, near wailing, before shoving him away once more. Sasuke seemed to be giving her slack right now, actually staying the distance from her.  
_

_He was probably afraid of driving her insane -Sakura rationalized- because there was no way he was doing it out of sympathy. Her entire body trembled as she faced the back wall while she pulled off her kimono top and then peeled off her white leggings along with her underwear. He hardly let her wear bras anymore, and this time had been no exception._

_Sakura threw the garments outside of the shower and then turned back to facing the wall, hugging herself as she heard the shower turn on, obviously by the one other person inside the room._

_She knew what was going to happen before it did: Sasuke jerked her by her elbow back to facing him. She **desperately **didn't want to look down so Sakura was forced to look directly at his face, into his eyes._

_He really was too beautiful. What could have turned him into a psychopath?_

_She had to swallow the lump that had formed in her throat from the intense stare he was giving her. Sakura still hated him for raping her, nothing could change that._

_But…_

_It was so hard to not get trapped by his gaze._

_She tried to back away but immediately both hands of his landed on her shoulders and kept her where she was, mere millimeters from touching him. The warm water poured down on both of their cold rained on bodies, creating steam that completely obscured the bathroom._

_All Sakura could see was Sasuke's beautiful face and the barest tops of his lean shoulders as he continued staring at her…with those blue…no red eyes of his…_

_Sakura gasped as he suddenly closed the distance between their mouths. Unlike all his other kisses, this one was soft and…comforting._

_She wanted to fight him, wanted to look away but his eyes…they transfixed her._

Sakura broke off her reverie there, not wanting to think about that horrific day anymore. He'd taken her again in that shower and it was almost as bad as the cemetery.

Her gaze landed onto Sasuke's sleeping face, everything about the man was horrific...

* * *

**Hey guys so I decided to change the ending for this chapter because I didn't like the original and I realized it didn't fit the direction I want this story to go in.**

**Sorry about any confusion!  
**


	13. Chapter 13

**Hey guys, sorry about the long wait.**

**About this chapter: I haven't actually seen every episode of Naruto Shippuden, or read every chapter of the Manga, haha, so please forgive me if I get anything wrong about the shinobi world. I've tried to look up everything I'm unsure of but I still may have missed something.**

**Since this fanfiction is taking place after the Fourth Great Shinobi World resolved and the canon has yet to finish the war plot, I'm going to make up a few things about how the war ended and the world that is the aftermath.**

**Just go with it okay? :)**

* * *

Sakura couldn't sleep at all that night.

She was far too worried about Sasuke and Gaara's forms to even think about anything except their well being. Sakura knew tomorrow would be the third day, and as such, if they still hadn't woken up by then, their bodies would start cannibalizing itself for nutrients. She could only take care of them so much in the wilderness: giving them water at periodic intervals, wiping clean their faces of cumulated sweat or dirt. Sakura had tried feeding them mashed tubers for meals once but they'd only unconsciously started choking on it and she'd had to hastily force the food out by patting the back of their necks.

Sakura knew of a multitude of techniques she could use to coax them into swallowing, but all of them relied on sending chakra into their bodies.

Naturally, this was just a dead end for her.

Sakura knew that when shinobis fell into a coma, they were typically sustained by flowing chakra levels from an assigned medical-nin, that controlled their bodies to a very small extent. Just enough to force them to chew, swallow and a few other minor mandatory functions, until they woke up.

She felt so useless to Gaara and Sasuke.

Regardless of their reasons, each of them had still gone out of their way to take care of her, to make sure she stayed alive and healthy. Why couldn't she just do the same for them?

Yes, even for Sasuke.

_Especially_ for Sasuke.

If, for no other reason, Sakura wanted him to stay alive just to help clear up the confusion in her life, both about him and _for him._

To answer why he'd done everything he'd did to her.

To help her clear up her confusing feelings for the boy.

There was too much she couldn't stand and at the same time so much she felt like she couldn't live without. Her feelings fluctuated so much, at times Sakura got a migraine just thinking about them.

And right now, as she sat on the matted dirt of the forest, staring into Sasuke's sleeping face-

-she just wished he would wake up.

The Uchiha did not comply and merely stayed in his peaceful slumber, the rise and fall of his chest the only sign that he was alive. After shifting her gaze to Gaara, to observe the same inactions more or less, the pinkette decided to turn her attention to the stars.

She wasn't going to get any sleep tonight, Sakura knew, so she mind as well pass the time staying vigil by staring at something less worrisome.

Fake memories or not, Sakura still had vivid memories of staying awake with her mother all night, whenever school was out, to stare at the various constellations across the sky. There was Cato the Crab, Tyrus the Giant, Alcintour the Boar...and so many more. Her mother had told her that each one was supposed to be a guardian of life, overlooking each and everyone's lives and stepping in when guidance was needed.

Sakura needed their help now, more than she'd ever had before. She muttered a quiet prayer to them with her hands folded in front of her. Sakura had never been a religious person before -having always been too focused on her schoolwork- but for this one instance, she gave in.

Because everything was far too hopeless.

Not even including Sasuke _or _her allegedly fake childhood, Sakura still had a thousand troubling questions. Why had Tsunade betrayed her? To give her sign off with the other four Kage to have her arrested? That didn't sound like the nurturing mentor she'd always known growing up.

The first group of ANBU that Gaara had fended off, from Iwagakure, had claimed Sasuke had murdered the Raikage for her. What the hell did that mean? Had it been just like the way things happened at Gaara's alleged death? When he'd come to try and rescue her, unwittingly eliciting Sasuke's fury and subsequent murderous rampage?

Gaara had thankfully, and skillfully, escaped…

Speaking of which, **how **in the world had he done that?

Sakura knew Ino inside and out, and she could tell that the tears her childhood had shed for Gaara's death (when she'd finally owned up to having lied to Sakura), had been real. Tenten and Choji had confessed to their subterfuge too, and Sakura could tell by their contriteness that they were sincere. Even Sai, an ANBU, had exclaimed that their secretiveness had just been to keep her from getting anymore depressed.

And if Sai hadn't known...

That meant the whole "fake" death ordeal, hadn't been a planned deception on the village's part to capture Sasuke. Gaara had done it of his own volition, purposely abdicating his position as Kazekage to live as a masked Shinobi...

Why had he done that?

Sakura really couldn't fathom.

And how had he managed to show up right at the moment the ANBU had come into her room to arrest her that night?

Had he been **watching **her? The entire month she'd returned to Konoha?

The pinkette turned to stare right into the slumbering Kazekage's face, like she'd previously done with Sasuke. Gaara's face held far more lines than the Uchiha's, probably symptoms of all the stress he'd had to deal with being ruler of Suna. The iconic dark bags under his eyes were undoubtedly the result of many years of insomnia and restless nights too.

Her lime green eyes wandered towards the man's lips, being reminded of the kiss he'd forced on her.

Sakura wasn't a simpleton, she'd seen through the action's purpose as soon as Sasuke had gotten sealed in the glass cube: it'd been meant as a distraction. To infuriate the Uchiha enough to make him lose his bearings and act purely on impulse.

She couldn't believe the extent to which Gaara had everything planned.

At this thought, a shiver ran down Sakura's spine. Did he have _anything __**else **_planned? What if he'd had other plans but he'd fallen unconscious before he'd been able to implement them?

Right as she thought that something shifted in the shadows, right at the edge of her peripheral vision. Oh god.

Sakura stood up instinctively.

There was no denying it: the distinct force of power that could be nothing else except a strong Shinobi's chakra entering the clearing. In a second, a tall imposing figure materialized right in the center of her haven. They stood right on top of both Gaara and Sasuke's slumbering forms, one foot on each of their chests.

The person's sudden appearance caused Sakura to stumble back in shock and fall painfully on her romp.

Their appearance frightened her even more.

Like Gaara previously, it was another masked figure; this one had a white mask with a large spiral encompassing all of the front while two eye holes and then a third, seemingly arbitrary hole stood right above the two where his forehead was. It took Sakura a second to recognize the pattern looked just like the first stage of the Sharingan she'd read about in her textbooks during her return to Konoha.

The books had said only the Uchiha had these eyes. Was this person an Uchiha like Sasuke? In her history books she'd read that all of the Uchiha had been slaughtered, except one...

In addition to the mask, the individual was wearing blue robes that covered all the way down to his arms and legs, splitting in the front, at the center to reveal loose black leggings. Finally, he had a thick white sash bound across his waist.

The man stared down at her.

"Wh-who in the world are you?!" Sakura cried in panic. Then she saw that they were presently standing on top of Sasuke and Gaara's forms.

Irrational and stupid though it may have been, Sakura felt the need to defend them. "Get off of them!"

The man didn't listen and merely stayed where he was. Sakura had to fight off the urge to push them straight off, knowing that she probably wouldn't succeed and would just anger the clearly stronger shinobi.

_Were they an enemy? A friend?_

"What do you want?" she asked, subconsciously leaning away from them as the wind started picking up around them, blowing her hair in front of her.

The man's clothes got blown in the wind as he without warning raised his arm so that it lined lined straight perpendicular with the ground. His black gloved palm opened flat above his head and Sakura knew instantly he was casting a jutsu.

His other hand moved to position right above the center of his chest, weaving a series of signs that told Sakura what jutsu he was casting: it was a transportation spell. Standard and taught during her time at the academy. His signs included boar and ram so it signalled he was transporting all four of them-

-just as she thought that the world around her started spiralling, like a molten mixture. Sakura had experienced transportation jutsu before but none that had such a vivid effect across the world. It told her that whoever this person was had a great deal of chakra at their disposal and a near mastery of material manipulation.

In a second, the spirals ended and Sakura found herself in a whole other setting altogether.

It wasn't even night anymore: the sun hung bright and vibrant atop her head as she sat sprawled on her legs, between Gaara and Sasuke's sleeping forms while the masked man stood in front of her.

They were on a bridge, of sorts.

It was broken in almost every spot on the surface, and even down it's foundation, but somehow it still stood erect above a wide flowing river, almost seven hundred feet beneath them. Sakura estimated as much anyway. At the very far end of the bride was a sign that had kanji on it, unfortunately, where she was right now, Sakura was too far to read it.

On all sides of the bridge were odd pillars with strange half circle markings carved down their surfaces, undoubtedly meant for decorative purposes but because they all had large chunks or severe cracks running their their surface, it looked more morbid than appealing.

The sun was shining brightly which was odd because just a second ago, in the forest, Sakura calculated that there were still five hours until dawn. But now, she guessed it to be about afternoon.

Was this a genjutsu?

Or had she been transported straight to the other side of the world, where the sun actually was shining?

"Where are we?" Sakura asked, turning to look at the masked man.

"More or less, the Land of The Iron," a male voice answered her. She didn't recognize it at all.

"Iron?" the kunoichi reiterated because of her own disbelief. This was Iron? The place she'd read about that was supposed to be never endingly snowing?

"B-but how? The weather it's..." Sakura trailed off, taking in the warm spring atmosphere and weather. Surrounding the bridge, and on both sides of the river running below them were high inclining rocky walls, the sides of distinctive mountains. Trees remarkably grew on the rocky surface all across the cliff sides.

"We're right on the edge, close to the border, right before the Land of Earth. As such, the climate is significantly altered here."

Sakura blinked a few times, kind of surprised he was being so straightforward and honest. Part of her had expected him to be aloof or even outright standoffish.

She opened her mouth to question him again, this time about his identity but the man intercepted her words: "Follow me, I'll show you to where you'll be staying."

Sakura stayed expectedly still, watching him with suspicious eyes. Her fears were immediately squashed when the man suddenly bent down and came to drape Sasuke's form over his shoulder.

"You have to carry Gaara, I need one hand free to enter the sanctuary," the man stated matter-of-factly.

Before Sakura could even think of a response, he'd started walking away, with Sasuke.

The pinkette bit her lip, squashed all her worries, and bent down low to hoist Gaara's sleeping form onto his feet. Literally, it took all her strength just to keep him upright with one arm draped over her shoulder. Sakura realized that her muscles must have gone through atrophy because of her long term neglect and disuse of them.

No matter.

She would get through this. She would get through this.

Sakura chanted that statement inside her head as she half pulled, half dragged Gaara's body over the cracked blue stone surface of the bridge, following the masked man as he made his way down it's length, heading right towards the gate at the end. When they got close enough, Sakura saw that it read Samurai.

They were indeed in Iron.

Sakura had no time for anymore thoughts about the scenery because the masked man never actually made it to the gate. Instead, about four feet away from the ornate torii, he stopped short and knelt down to one part of the bridge that was not broken. In fact, it was the _only _part that was still solid on top. Most of the bridge was actually still intact, it was just the superficial surface that people trekked on, that was severely damaged.

Facing the ground, the masked man did a series of complex hand signs, these ones far too fast and too numerous for Sakura to read, before concluding with an extended index and middle finger conjoined together into a tip before tapping the blue stone.

Instantaneously, a bright azure light leaked from where his fingers touched the rock, leeching into the carved design across the surface on all sides of his hand until a perfect circle of radiant blue designs displayed around his gloved palm. A second later, the circle shrank and revealed a hidden passage.

The masked man stood up and stepped in halfway, motioning with his hand for Sakura to follow, which the pinkette did without much thought because of her curiousity.

As soon as she went in, the circular stone moved back into place and sealed the entrance. _Now, _Sakura was getting second thoughts.

But the guy _seemed _pretty okay, so far, anyway. He didn't _seem _like he meant her, or any of them, any harm.

Well, in any case, it was too late to go back now.

They traversed a narrow stone passageway lit with oddly glowing rock on all sides of them. Truth be told, it was eery, and remarkably creepy because the stone radiated a dull green light that shaded everything like rotting cadavers.

She tried to keep the trembling out of her voice but Sakura couldn't help stuttering as she asked: "Wh-where are we going?"

"I already said, a sanctuary. You will be safe here," he answered simply without turning around.

"Why are you helping me?" she asked quickly, hoping to catch him in conversation for this answer.

"Because..." now he did come to look at her; it was only then that Sakura realized one of his eyes was different from the other, one having the characteristic Mangekyo Sharingan she'd read about and...she didn't recognize the second design. It was light maroon with black spirals.

She gulped as he stared straight at her, to whisper almost disturbingly: "...you're family now."

With that simple statement, he turned back around casually and started walking towards the bright exit (that had finally become visible now). Sakura found herself frightened again but had no choice but to follow him once more since the only other exit was blocked and he still had Sasuke over his shoulder. If this guy attacked her, Gaara or Sasuke, before any of the latter two woke up...

Sakura shuddered at the thought.

As soon as she exited the tunnel, Sakura saw where the light was coming from: a lit torch near the entrance…

Sakura gasped, immediately backing out of the room as soon as her eyes took in the setting. She unwittingly dropped Gaara in her panic as she scrambled to back out. The masked man turned to look at her sudden impulsion, right as Sakura tripped on her own feet across the stone.

"Are you alright?" he asked her, sounding concerned.

"DON'T COME ANY CLOSER!" Sakura called as she started hyperventilating.

Simultaneously, her eyes fell back to the interior of the room: a central thick metallic column with the Uchiha fan symbol embedded straight in the center of it. Beneath the fan, in front of the column was a large table draped by a red silk cloth. Resting on top of the silk were literally _hundreds _of Uchiha ancestral plaques, on kanji in each of them were the year they were born and died, then their names and finally position or importance to the clan.

Sakura didn't have to get close to know what each one said.

Because she'd been here once before.

_He'd drugged her again._

_Sakura knew because she could feel the distinct numbing heaviness across her skull as her eyelids lifted. As she expected, Sasuke was right in front of her._

_They were in some kind of dark circular interior with rock walls on all sides. The only light came from a solemn candle sitting on top of a red satin cloth, on top of a table next to her._

_She was propped up against a thick metal with her head turned sideways to face Sasuke as he locked eyes with her. He was kneeling in front of the table, before the candle. It took Sakura a few moments to regain the strength in her limbs; it was moments, Sasuke gave her time for._

_Only until she could sit up properly on her own, did the Uchiha grab and literally pull her to his side, making her join him in kneeling just like they'd done in front of Itachi's grave._

_Sakura just hoped it had a different ending._

"_Where am I?" she asked, terrified and leaning away from Sasuke even as he held her wrist in a deathlike grip._

_The man, like always, ignored her._

_It'd been….quite a while since the day at the cemetery….weeks...months...Sakura wasn't really sure but more than four weeks. She knew because every day since then, he'd made it a routine to have sex with her. Sometimes two or three times in one day, that was when she'd lost her sense of time inside that metal prison._

_Originally he'd kept her inside the log cabin but soon after crippling her chakras, Sasuke had relocated her into an iron prison, chaining her ankles to a solemn bed with iron fixtures and a single window for her to look into the world. Always, whenever she'd looked through it, the only thing visible was just the sky: either the sun, moon or stars. Never could see grass or water._

_Occasionally, Sasuke wanted to take her someplace, and during those times he always drugged her before taking her out. Sakura had no doubt it was to prevent her from figuring out where she was._

_Right now, he had a hold of her hand and was keeping it tightly in place across his chest, as he faced the altar. Suddenly, his other hand lifted from his side, having previously been hidden by his trousers, to reveal a long intimidating dagger._

_Sakura panicked and immediately started backing away, struggling with all her strength to try and break free._

_Sasuke's head whirled around to glare at her. "Don't struggle, Sakura. You'll make me cut you more than I have to."_

What did that mean? _More than he had to?_

_In the moment she took to stop and contemplate his words, the man used his dagger and pricked the very tip of her index. The cut wasn't too big but went in deeper than Sakura expected and she emitted a short scream halfway, biting her lip in the end to bide the pain._

_Sasuke dropped the dagger and it clattered noisily to the ground but he still wouldn't let go of Sakura's hand, instead he clutched her bleeding finger and allowed her blood to drip into a bronze tray that contained a clumped black mess of indistinguishable dry substance. When Sakura was close enough, she smelled a rather foul odor coming off it._

_After only a few seconds, Sasuke finally let go of her and Sakura immediately retracted her hand, clutching the burning appendage close to her chest as she scrambled, staying on her butt, to get away. Unfortunately, the room was only so big and her back collided against the wall that was less than four feet from the altar._

_Sasuke seemed to know that there was nowhere she could go because he ignored her for now and turned his attention back to the altar. In a second, Sasuke had raised his own index to his lips and unflinchingly bitten down into the skin to release his own blood, before pouring it into the bronze bowl as well._

_What was this? Some sort of archaic ritual where he sacrificed to an insane god? Was she now going to become a live sacrifice for a deity? Sakura had read about insane religions like this in the past…_

_Just as she thought that, Sasuke turned back to face her again._

_The candlelight revealed only one side of his perfect face, creating sharp shadows down his alabaster skin. It made him look all the more menacing..._

_He extended his hand out, meaning for her to take._

_She gulped, so terrified of him in that moment...but her hand slipped into his nonetheless. The Uchiha pulled her once more to his side, this time albeit gentler._

"_Do you know what these plaques are, Sakura?" Sasuke asked her with an unemotional tone in his voice. The pinkette watched him for a second with a quivering stare, then turned to look at what looked to be hundreds of wooden ornate plates standing upright on the table._

_She leaned in closer to read the kanji and saw that they had the death and birth dates of...Uchiha. Every single one represented an Uchiha._

_This was a memorial._

_Sakura was bewildered and didn't know how to make of any of it. She turned back to Sasuke, intending to ask him but the man cut her off._

"_Bow to them."_

_The pinkette hesitated in her confusion and this wore down on Sasuke's patience after a few long moments. His left palm that still clutched her hand, tightened excruciatingly across the appendage, causing Sakura to screech. Sasuke jerked her up close so that her face came to line with his. "BOW. TO. THEM."_

_Sakura's vision blurred with tears and she quickly nodded her consent, prompting Sasuke to let go._

_Immediately, she turned to face the altar and the hundreds of his ancestors, lowering herself in a traditional kowtow._

_As she did this, Sakura realized, Sasuke was doing the same thing simultaneously._

_When she raised herself and looked at the man again, Sakura saw that he was smiling. It was short and small._

_Odd even._

_And certainly uncharacteristic of him._

_Before she could move away, he suddenly pounced on her, shoving her sideways onto the ground while his body came to smother hers on top. His mouth met her ear as Sakura trembled frightfully._

_Sasuke kissed the side of her jawline, reaching up until he got to her ear to whisper: "Now you really are mine."_

_Sakura shivered as his hand reached for the obi to her shirt, undoing it in a flash._

The kunoichi broke off the flashback there, not wanting to think about that day anymore. Yes, he'd taken her again on that day, forcing himself into her as always...but he'd been gentle that time. Probably the most gentle he'd ever been with her.

Not that Sakura still made it any easier for him to rape her; she'd still struggled violently but Sasuke managed to quell all of her flails without much force or strength. Then with a single glare, that she identified now as being his sharingan, she'd found herself subdued, left weak and defenseless to his ministrations.

Sakura squeezed her misted eyes shut as she shuffled, on the ground, to get away from the advancing masked man.

He was in cahoots with Sasuke. He knew of this place, this ancestral shrine. He really was an Uchiha and...who knew what he wanted to do with her!

"Stay away from me!" Sakura cried as she scrambled to her feet, immediately trying for the door she'd came in on. But as soon as her head turned to face it, the heavy wooden door swung close of it's own volition and Sakura found herself trapped. She turned back to look at the masked man, who was now considerably closer.

With an agility she didn't know she had anymore, Sakura managed to dodge out of his ensnaring arms and made a race for the opposite end of the small room, where an inviting stairwell presented as her only escape.

Throwing caution to the wind, the Haruno girl raced up the stone steps three at a time, finding that they were a spiral staircase wound around a stone pillar.

Heavy footsteps behind her told her she was being chased.

Sakura reached the top of the stairwell and found herself in a huge expansive...dojo. It looked to be a circular training room that spanned at least two hundred feet wide in diameter and probably a seventy feet tall. A thick layer of dust was caked across the entire surface of the carved stone ground, indicating that this place hadn't been used in a long time. There was however, one single trail of fresh footprints before her, leading from the staircase she'd just come up on, into the back of the room.

Sakura didn't care about that then. She just wanted to find at least something to defend herself with.

Lucky for her, there were literally thousands of weapons lining the wall in it's entirety, ranging from close range axes to cross bows and arrows. Brute force wasn't going to be her ally here, Sakura knew she'd never be able to summon the strength needed for wielding any of the heavy weapons so she sprinted straight for the bows. Picking up a simple elephant toothed bow bound by sinew, Sakura strung a quiver of bows behind her back, right as the blue garbed masked man stepped into the room.

He eyed her weaponry and stayed where he was.

"What are you going to do Sakura?" he asked right as the first arrow was sent straight for his chest. He easily knocked it out of the way.

The kunoichi wouldn't give up, moving her trajectory, she shot another one towards his knee.

Again he parried it.

More and more arrows she aimed towards him and each one got knocked out straight through midair until her quiver hung despairingly empty behind her.

"Now will you calm down?" he asked but this question only irritated Sakura. _Everyone _was treating her like a petulant child. Do this. Don't do this. Follow me. Sit. Be quiet.

Calm. The. Fuck. Down?

Sakura suddenly screamed in fury while simultaneously chucking her bow straight towards the masked man's head. He knocked it away with his wrist.

She had had enough of this. Didn't any of them understand that the _last _thing she could do was calm down? That the last thing she could do was accept these insane circumstances as her life without anyone being considerate enough to explain to her WHAT THE HELL WAS GOING ON.

Sakura ran towards the nearest sword rack and pulled out a slender, double edged, tachi sword from ancient times. She quickly unsheathed it and threw the scabbard behind her as she came to face the man once again. In the time she'd taken to choose a sword, he'd drawn considerably closer than before and now stood less than ten feet away.

No matter.

Sakura couldn't be afraid anymore.

Making the first move, she charged straight towards the man with her blade extended, aiming for his unguarded abdomen. The man blocked it quick with a chakra infused gloved hand.

His other hand made a few short hand signs.

Instantly, Sakura felt her ankles being constricted deathly tight, causing her to lose her balance and fall flat on her side. She looked down and came to see that a thick snake had been summoned and was now coming to choke her ankles. She quickly stabbed the tip of her tachi straight into the python's head, skewering him straight.

Sakura unwrapped the snake and stood back up, taking a considerable amount of time doing so.

She turned around in a three-sixty and saw the man merely standing with his arms crossed in front of his chest, watching her the entire time.

"I don't want to fight you, Sakura," he stated simply, devoid of any real emotion.

This only infuriated the pinkette more. Was she not _good _enough to be fought with? Was she not even worthy enough for him to spend his chakra on?

"Who the hell do you think you are?" she screamed.

With incredible strength and speed that surprised even the masked man, Sakura leaped high into the tall training dojo and did a backflip straight in midair, using the spin to give her momentum when she fell from her apex to come crashing sword first towards the man.

Only at the last second was the man able to raise his gloved, chakra infused hand to block the attack. He pushed Sakura away with immense force and it looked like she was going to hit the wall but at the last second, the kunoichi managed to land remarkably on her feet, straight on the wall.

Before gravity could act on her, Sakura had propelled herself once more into the air, leaping straight horizontally towards her opponent once again. Her sword once more collided with his gloved hand to which Sakura now saw was torn and shredded at the center, undoubtedly from her aerial attack before.

The masked man heaved a sudden breath and instantly chakra came from all around him to cover his entire body, sending Sakura flying backward through the air once more. She lost her grip on the tachi this time and it plummeted to the ground, a second before she collided back first against...something soft, and strangely wet.

Most of Sakura's fall was broken before she collapsed to the ground so she was hardly injured. The girl stood up and saw that what had saved her was a misplaced sea anemone, unnaturally the size of a mattress, clinging onto the wall.

In a second, it was gone.

Sakura couldn't believe her eyes. This man had an anemone as a summoning? She'd never heard of this in all her life. Another part of her was surprised he had saved her...even though he'd technically, already done that just by bringing her here.

This partially quelled her anger.

"Who are you?" Sakura asked, adamant and resolved. She wasn't going to be mollified until he answered some questions.

The man shifted his weight onto one foot. "Call me Obito."

"Are you an Uchiha?" Her question came fast.

The man laughed, causing Sakura to stiffen in agitation again. The masked man raised his hands up, in a peace gesture, intoning: "Sorry."

"Answer me!" Sakura had virtually lost all of her patience by now.

"Yes, I am," he folded his hands across his chest, clearly amused. "I did say we were now family, didn't I?"

Sakura scrunched her eyebrows. "What are you talking about?"

"Well you're Sasuke's wife, I'm a distant uncle of sorts, so as such-"

"I'm what?" Sakura cried indignantly. "I never married that sadistic psychopath."

Obito laughed once again, amused at her bluntness. "Alright, I see I'll have to show you."

He motioned for her to follow him and then stepped casually towards the stairwell. Bewildered but still curious, Sakura complied and followed him back down once again to the Uchiha altar.

"You freaked out because you think you've been here before, right?"

"I _have _been here before. Sas-Sasuke took me here once," it disgusted her that saying his name caused her voice to stutter, especially when she had finally found her strength again.

Obito shook his head. "No, you went to the Mother Shrine, this is a sister one, one of literally thousands, secretly located across the Shinobi world. Each one is linked through jutsus and only accessible when a blooded Uchiha opens the door."

Sakura scrunched her eyebrows. "What do you mean a Mother Shrine? This looks completely identical."

Obito shook his masked head, a second before extending his hand to point towards the center of the altar, with all the memorials, where a bronze bowl should have been...but only had nothing.

"Only one shrine can legitimize the marriage ceremony between an Uchiha and his chosen mate."

Sakura's face paled.

Was that...what the strange ceremony had been about? Sasuke...had married her? Without her knowing? Or consenting?

_**He'd wanted to marry her?**_

"Sasuke made you prick yourself and drop blood into a bronze basin, correct? That is called the Rune of Union, our clan has cast a lasting jutsu over it, so that any pair of blood that falls in together will be bound in matrimony. It's our wedding ceremony, if you may."

"But how did you know about it?" Sakura asked. "That it took place with me?"

Obito snapped his fingers, as if he'd been waiting for her to ask just that. He excitedly bent down and picked up the closest plaque on the desk. As he lifted it, a red string was revealed on the bottom and when he pulled enough, another plaque was carried along with it up into the air. Obito handed the pair of memorial plaques to Sakura.

The kanji on them denoted her name on one, and Sasuke's on another. It labelled her "Wife of Sasuke Uchiha." Even more creepily, the plaques had her birthday and birthplace on it as well.

This was the most absurd thing she'd ever heard of in her life.

But there were far more pressing matters for her to worry about than a false title as Mrs Uchiha.

"Fine, whatever," Sakura cried while shoving the plaques back into Obito's hands. "I'll just divorce him when he wakes up."

Obito chose not to say anything in that moment, knowing that she would most likely not be able to accept the other side effects of the Uchiha marriage ceremony.

"Any other questions?" Obito asked blithely.

Sakura chewed her lower lip. "What in the world is going on...in my life? Tsunade says I'm a reanimated Shinobi? She says Sasuke brought me back to life, using a new way to revive the dead but it caused me to get altered memories…is that true? How did I die in the first place?"

Obito was either bewildered or tactfully staying silent until all her questions were asked. Finally, when she was done, he cleared his throat and said:

"Um...truth be told, I don't know." He offered a placating laugh to soften his folly. "I mean, I wasn't there when it actually occurred. All I know is that you died soon after the Fourth Shinobi War ended."

Sakura stiffened. "Anything else?"

Obito shrugged and shook his head nonchalantly.

His carelessness was grating on Sakura's nerves again. "You're lying! You know more than you're letting up! I can tell!"

Obito scoffed. "Oh? And so what if I am? What are you going to do to take it out of me?"

Sakura locked her jaw, blinking a few times to think of what she could do...it was obvious he was stronger than her and if he hadn't broken her fall earlier, she probably wouldn't even be walking right now…

But still…

Sakura suddenly got an idea. Shoving him out of the way, she came to scoop up all the memorial plaques on the table messily into her arms. "Tell me, or I'll smash all of these onto the ground. Wood splinters easily, I'm sure you're well aware. You said you Uchiha care more about family than anything else, right?"

Obito laughed again. "Do it, see what happens."

Sakura was getting so sick of his merry attitude. Not even hesitating, she smashed all of them onto the floor.

Just as she expected, they all splintered upon impact. But as quick as they'd broken, they just as sooner vanished. Sakura turned and saw that they were all intact once again on the table, lined in the order they'd first been in.

What the-

Suddenly, Sakura felt herself being shoved up against the wall with a palm constricting tightly around her throat. Obito's two separate eyes glared into her lime green ones. "Now, I'll have to teach you what it means to dishonor our clan."

His palm constricted tight around her throat; it wasn't enough to kill her but the pain was still excruciating. Sakura screamed and-

-a kunai knife suddenly came striking straight towards Obito, the man skillfully dodged it just in time. He dropped Sakura and turned around to face his attacker.

"Lea...ve….Sakura...alone," Gaara's labored breath wracked across his chest as he stood leaning against the wall of the small altar room. It was clear he was still heavily hindered by his injury.

"Gaara!" the pinkette cried happily as she ran to his side, clutching him by his elbow to make sure he was supported. Truth be told he looked extremely wobbly on his legs and his face was pale with heavy sweat across his forehead.

Sakura knew by his symptoms that his wound must have gotten infected. Her attempts to tend to it must have not been enough, being constantly exposed to the wilderness and outdoors for three days.

"Tobi…Obito…" Gaara exclaimed through labored breaths. "You were supposed to have been killed in the war."

"Well, so was she but I don't see you questioning her!" the man exclaimed childishly, comically even.

Gaara pursed his lips, telling Sakura that he knew something about her too.

"Sakura…" he said hoarsely. "This man...is not...safe. Don't-" he winced, clutching the wound on his abdomen. "...trust him."

He suddenly leaned down so that his mouth came to line up with her ear. His breath blew hotly into it. For a strange reason, Sakura found herself blushing. Gaara didn't seem to take notice as he whispered just for her to hear: "Where do those…stairs lead?"

Sakura leaned in to whisper as well: "It's not an exit, just a training ground, and then more stairs."

Simultaneously, Obito on the other side shouted: "HEY YOU TWO, THIS IS SACRED GROUND. WE'LL HAVE NONE OF THAT GOING ABOUT HERE."

By his tone, it was obvious he didn't take himself seriously but there seemed to an underlying threat anyway inside of it. In any case, it was clear he didn't take either of them as much of a threat, otherwise he would have attacked by now.

Gaara did a quick sweep of their surroundings with his eyes, then said with finality. "No matter...we'll have to try it, it's…the only way out. When...I make...my move, grab Sasuke...and we'll...make a run for it."

Sakura felt afraid...but for some reason, being next to Gaara gave her hope and strength. She gave her nod of consent.

In an instant, Gaara had gone straight charging towards Obito, knocking the man to the ground and once more making the table of Uchiha ancestors spill onto the ground. Sakura reacted quick, just like Gaara had told her to do and in a second she had Sasuke by his underarms and was half dragging, half lifting him up the stairwell. His weight slowed her down considerably and she started to panic when she heard Gaara's scream.

She wanted to go back to help him, she really did but Sakura knew she would just be a burden to him if nothing else, especially needing to lug Sasuke's body all the way and down again. Resolute, Sakura gathered her strength and finally her way up onto the top of the stairwell.

She plopped down Sasuke onto the stone floor in the center of the room and turned back, intending to run down the stairs to aid Gaara but just as she took three steps, that very same red haired man raced out of the top of the staircase too. As soon as their paths crossed, he grabbed her wrist and raced away with her into the center of the room, joining Sasuke's still unconscious form.

Sakura saw that a heavy bloody gash was crossed right above the Fifth Kazekage's forehead, cutting into the "love" kanji sign on his temple. That must have been the scream she'd heard.

Obito came to step casually into the room, making Sakura anxious with his cool careless disposition. He obviously knew that even at two to one, he had an advantage.

Gaara's breathing was still labored and rang already out of breath from the exertion he'd had to make. Another disadvantage he had was that his sand gourd was nowhere to be found.

Lucky for him, however, there was a considerable amount of dust across the entire training room…

"Sakura," Gaara turned to face her again, his eyes frighteningly serious. "I'll do my best to fight him...but if I fail…"

He raised his right palm and dust particles suddenly started accumulating into it, only a miniscule amount though before it stopped. The dust had taken to the size of a diamond, floating right in the center of Gaara's palm. The Fifth Kazekage uttered a quiet jutsu and made a few fast hand signs, causing a bright blue light to encapsulate the grains. When it dissipated, instead of dust, a real diamond floated right on top of Gaara's hand.

He took Sakura's hand and quickly wrapped it around the shard. It was extremely cool to the touch.

"Break this, alright?" Gaara's instructions were mysterious and confusing but Sakura gave her nod. "But only do this if all else fails, got it?"

Again Sakura nodded.

Gaara suddenly pulled her in close by her upper arm for the last part of his speech.

"If you get a chance to escape," he iterated with their faces parallel and unbearably close to each other. _Why was her heart pounding so loud?_

"_**Don't**_ come back for me, you understand?" He punctuated the word by shaking her lightly. "Save yourself, Sakura."

And with that he let go and raced into the battle stage with Obito.

* * *

**Explanation about setting: So in the case that my descriptions weren't good enough, the bridge they landed on was the bridge that Sasuke and Danzo fought at which I assumed was right on the edge of the Land of The Iron (since in the episode it's the only place that's not snowing, and I assume it's like this because it's right on the edge. Tobi cornered Danzo on it because well, he was leaving the Land of the Iron as he was going on it and of course he and Sasuke fight there.**

**I LOOKED EVERYWHERE, and I couldn't find out SPECIFICALLY where the Land of The Iron was located. I couldn't find any of it's neighbors. Like nada, lol. So I just hypothesized that they were next to the Earth and Wind Country since on the naruto map there's an unmarked spot of land between those two countries. Don't kill me if I've gotten this wrong loyal Naruto fans!**

**Alright that's it. Please tell me if you have any questions and I'll do my best to answer them, without giving away the plot of course haha.**


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